Lone Star Nation (LST) is possibly my favorite book about about the Texas Revolution. So far, I have read three books by H.W. Brands (Heirs of Our Founders, Andrew Jackson, and now LST) and he is an excellent historian and author. LST covers most of the same period as Heirs and Jackson and, as he demonstrates, it is next to impossible to understand the revolutionary experience in Texas without understanding Andrew Jackson, the war of 1812, and (equally important) Mexico's struggle for independence.

LST covers all areas of the Texas Revolution, but specifically digs into Austin's role in found the colony, what led him there and how it influenced the revolution. He also covered Sam Houston's background focusing on his experience in the war of 1812, as the governor of Tennessee, his long-standing relationship with Andrew Jackson and his leadership as he guided the republic into statehood. The background added to Santa Anna, was very important in developing his thesis, as well. Without a full understanding of how Santa Anna came to be you really cannot understand the Texas Revolution.

This book also demonstrates that the Texas Revolution is much more than a war of slavery and free land. The road to independence, as he demonstrates, is the culmination of American settlers' incessant need for more land, their drive to bend the rules and buck taxation when confronted with a corrupt government, and ultimately the settlers drive to make sense of a newly formed nation (Mexico) that was racked by continued revolution (ultimately, it was better to go it alone rather than continue dependence on a despotic nation that couldn't decide on a constitution).

Lastly, I really appreciated that LST did not focus heavily on the mythos of Texas history. This book dug into all the angles.

This is the most recently-told story of Texas independence, and I learned a ton about the lives of figures I'd only known at the surface level. For example, whereas Sam Huston was the strong military leader, Stephen Austin was the diplomat. I also neither appreciated the prominent role of Andrew Jackson in the relationship of Texas to the US and Mexico, nor his political evolution and influence after his presidency. Nevertheless, I expected more discussion about why Texas Independence changed America. While there are certainly implications such as the deeply-ingrained cultural affinity for liberty, I would have preferred fewer chapters about the war and more analysis about how those events have shaped the state and country we have today.

A great history of the creation of Texas and how it ended up being a part of America. Strong personalities and a great story. Fun read (or listen)!

Listened to the unabridged audiobook on Audible.com.

This book presents a very engaging history Texas leading up to its annexation by the United States. I enjoyed this well-written account of some familiar characters and events, and I look forward to my next read by Mr. Brands.

A detailed and well documented history of Texas, from the time of Mexican province, to Independent Republic to a state in the Union, touching on the start of the US Civil War. While that covers from approximately the 1820's to 1861, the largest section covers the war of Independence against Mexico from 1835-36.

Brands is an historian and college professor (UT-Austin) who has written dozens of books in the last 35 years. He has great attention to detail and seems to heavily source his material from writings of the times and from those who were directly involved. He does a good job in bringing the historical icons to life - not as men and women to be revered but as human beings following their hearts, minds, pursuit of riches and freedom. In doing so, he paints real pictures of real people (warts and all). He writes of those who came to Texas for all the above mentioned reasons, with a focus on those who helped start the migration from the United States to Texas (Austin, Bastrop), those who fought to gain independence (Houston, Fannin, Travis, Milam, Crockett, Bowie, Burleson), those who fought against it (Santa Anna, Cos, De La Pena) and the politicians who worked to use the cause of Independence for their own reasons (Houston, Jackson, Adams).

Brands makes a compelling case that Texas' independence and then annexation into the United States helps to bring to the surface, divisions that 20 years later lead to the US Civil War based on several things: Slavery was outlawed in Mexico, US settlers brought their slaves into Texas when they settled, US politicians debated the annexation of Texas largely from the point of slavery - would it be allowed or not (abolitionist vs. secessionist; states rights vs. big government).

While it took me a long time to read, a chapter at a time between other less intellectual books, it was thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening - as my previous grasp of Texas history pretty much began and ended at The Alamo.

This is a very nicely written history of how Texas became a state. There's a lot of research, and some things glossed over other places gets more attention here. It's a great recounting of some facts that most don't know.

The American Revolution, Civil War, and World War II seem to get most of the attention from historians and the reading public. This books is a good step in the direction of correcting that.

Strongly recommended to Texans, history buffs, and anyone willing to learn more about America's past.

I am not ashamed to be a lover of history, especially mid 19th century history. having read some Texas history, I continue to stand in awe of Brand's treatment of history.

Some was a little too detailed, but still, I got to know the participants in more detail than in past readings. That is valuable to me.

I enjoyed this one in audio version. It sure makes a road trip across the desert fly!

This book by Brands has a great deal in common with the one I read on California a few months ago. The politics of admitting both Texas and California to the Union became a battleground for the slavery issue, as did, I presume, the political history of every other state admitted in the decades before the Civil War. Texas and California were just bigger and destined to be influential. I was disappointed when the California book left the gold rush—which was my primary interest in reading it—and got into the politics of slavery, but I ended up interested enough to think those decades before the Civil War were a lot more interesting than I’d assumed.
Lone Star Nation doesn’t get to the slavery issue until the end, after Texas won its independence and sought to join the Union. Then former president John Quincy Adams led the opposition to Texas statehood on the grounds that it would be a backward stop to admit such a big state as a slave state. Adams was also offended, on moral grounds, that Texas had admitted slave owners with their slaves—illegally—even as a part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. (Mexico had outlawed slavery in the 1820s.) I had not known that the last public act of Sam Houston, then governor of the state of Texas, was to refuse to sign the papers officially transferring Texas to the Confederacy. He resigned and died before the Civil War was over and slavery defeated and the Union restored.
Brands’ story is a heroic one—rag-tag settlers, mostly from the US, who tried to get along as a state of Mexico but failed. Stephen F. Austin, the founder of Texas, tried very hard to make Texas work as a Mexican state and before joining those agitating for complete independence from Mexico had advocated Texas statehood within Mexico separate from Coahuila. At one point he spent a year in Mexico City trying to move the government on behalf of Texas and when he returned in a last ditch effort to negotiate a deal with Mexico, he was imprisoned as the traitor he wasn’t at the time—but would become.
The story of defeat and death at the Alamo and Goliad were familiar from an earlier read; Houston’s victory at San Jacinto is familiar because I’ve visited the battlefield and memorial many times and knew at least the barebones of the story. I enjoyed reading about the heroics of men who had been before only the names of downtown streets.
Brands perpetrates the legend of ragtag and fiercely independent Texans. Houston’s army had no discipline at all, though Houston was trained under Andrew Jackson and knew something about military discipline. He wanted to fight a defensive war with Santa Anna’s superior forces (and he had ordered the abandonment and destruction of the Alamo), but his men made their own decisions, first to defend the Alamo and then forcing his hand at San Jacinto.
One scene I had not known about though was the mass exodus of the civilian population that spring of war. Following the defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, settlers—often just wives and children—sought to leave, bunched up on the roads, abandoning goods and vehicles that couldn’t deal with the roads and piling up trying to cross first the flood-swollen Trinity and then the Sabine. Knowing something of “evacuation” from recent hurricanes I was duly horrified at their predicament.
I didn’t grew up in Texas but one thing I’ve learned from living here is that Texas is proud of being the only state that was once an independent nation, but that’s really twisting history. The years after victory at San Jacinto which ended the fighting and sent the army back to Mexico were years of trying to get adopted by the American union and treating with other countries (particularly Britain) in case that did not work out. And while Santa Anna, the President when he led the Mexican army to Texas, but soon deposed when he was captured, was willing to recognize Texas independence, official Mexico was not. The tensions led the Mexican war which finally paved the way for Mexico to recognize the annexation of Texas to the United States as well as to cede California and New Mexico. That’s the next period I need to read up on….

Brands, without being multicultural for multiculturalism's sake, documents both the Hispanic and the Anglo contribution to Texas' independence. He does so without giving saccharine descriptions of either group's leadership or their ability to always get alone with one another, either before or after 1836.

And, in the years leading up to the Texas Revolution, he doesn't sidestep the slavery question either.

That honest eye is important, because in the last section of the book, he carries the story of Texas forward through 1865.

A great book about the Texas Revolution that almost reads like an adventure novel.

H.W. Brands tells the stories of the main leaders of the Revolution and their respective backstories: Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, William B. Travis, James Bowie, Davy Crockett... All his given to understand why they fought in the war. Lesser-known but nonetheless important figures are also followed such as Herman Ehrenberg's incredible fate.

All events are vividly described with of course a crucial spot given to the Alamo and the battle of San Jacinto. This book is quite event-driven so I recommend it for those who want to know what happened without expecting much-detailed descriptions of the life on the Texian frontier.

Great read as part of a U.S. history marathon.

Great read with a TON of Texas History.

I really liked this books. I listed to it on CD and where the reader did voices for the letters to distinguish them from the text of the book which was mostly helpful and only a little bit weird.

I haven't had an Texas history since high school (17 years ago) so this was a great refresher and full of things I never learned the first time around.