Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers by Doug J. Swans

Description: Cult of Glory by Doug J. Swanson "First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020." FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers." —The New York Times Book ReviewA twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruptionThe Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight.Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made. Author Biography Doug J. Swanson is the author most recently of Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker. He was for many years an investigative reporter and editor at The Dallas Morning News, and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, and spent a year as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Swanson currently teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Review Praise for Cult of Glory: "Scorches the reputations of such legendary Rangers as Ben McCulloch and William `Bigfoot Wallace for massacring Native Americans and Mexican-Americans willy-nilly . . . Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers." —The New York Times Book Review"Swanson punctures the myth of the Texas Rangers as `quiet, deliberate, gentle men, describing them instead as `the violent instruments of repression . . . Cult of Glory will thus surely discomfit some of those who pick it up, even as it confirms for others their sense that the Rangers frequently served as anything but impartial arbiters of justice." —The Wall Street Journal "[Cult of Glory] rigorously chronicles two centuries of Ranger misadventures and atrocities, as well as commendable operations undertaken by the Rangers in recent decades . . . [and] strives to be as panoramic as possible, telling a big story on a big canvas . . . it also strives to supplant the Ranger narratives of yore by synthesizing decades of others research as well as Swansons own findings." —John Phillip Santos, Texas Monthly"Magisterial . . . lays bare [the Rangers] long record of savagery, lawlessness, and racism." —The Chicago Tribune"For any student of Texas history, [Cult of Glory] is a treasure, on several levels . . . A fascinating historical narrative, packed with colorful episodes and outsize characters . . . In setting the record straight about the Texas Rangers, Swanson clarifies and enriches the remarkable story of Texas for everyone." —Houston Chronicle"A harrowing deep dive into the Rangers darkest moments . . . What Swanson found in his thousands of documents is that the history of the Rangers is hardly a pretty picture when it comes to documenting their treatment of people of color." —The Dallas Morning News "In an era in which some desire a return to a perceived greatness, books like this remind us greatness is often reliant on the selective memory of storytellers." —Library Journal (starred review) "This boldly revisionist account takes no prisoners." —Publishers Weekly"Cult of Glory is a masterpiece of American history. Period. Doug Swanson has taken on the Texas Ranger legend in all of its terrifying magnificence, disassembled it, and created in its place a real, true, and shockingly new history." —S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon "Utterly absorbing and sweeping in scope. Doug J. Swanson has stripped away the clichés and mythology of the Texas Rangers and written a meticulous and propulsive narrative thats a delight to read." —Gilbert King, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Beneath a Ruthless Sun"The conquest of the American West was a ruthless, sanguinary affair. At long last, Doug J. Swansons Cult of Glory resurrects the truth about the Texas Rangers and their complicated history, and its a far stranger, more fascinating tale than any youve ever read about the storied lawmen. A revelatory masterpiece." —Melissa del Bosque, author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty"The Rangers in Swansons Cult of Glory are, by turns, heroic, villainous, astonishingly brave and sometimes breathtakingly inept. Every chapter—and I mean every single one—contains a character who could have been sprung straight out of a screenwriters imagination." —Skip Hollandsworth, author of The Midnight Assassin "Cult of Glory is a remarkable feat of reporting, conjuring the crimes and courage of the Texas Rangers while dismantling toxic American myths—from the romanticized anti-hero to American exceptionalism. Swanson refuses to reduce the Texas Rangers to a monolith, instead breathing cinematic life into their diverse makeup of white supremacists, cold-blooded murderers and heroes. In gripping prose, he reveals the contradictions that forged America and fueled the earliest border wars. Its a wild and timely ride you need to go on—adrenaline-packed and enlightening."—Jean Guerrero, Emmy-winning journalist and author of Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir and Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda "[A] big story . . . to tell, expanding on, updating, and sometimes correcting works by writers such as Walter Prescott Webb and John Boessenecker . . . Revisionist history done well." —Kirkus Reviews Review Quote Praise for Cult of Glory : "Scorches the reputations of such legendary Rangers as Ben McCulloch and William Bigfoot Wallace for massacring Native Americans and Mexican-Americans willy-nilly . . . Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers." --The New York Times Book Review "Swanson punctures the myth of the Texas Rangers as quiet, deliberate, gentle men, describing them instead as the violent instruments of repression . . . Cult of Glory will thus surely discomfit some of those who pick it up, even as it confirms for others their sense that the Rangers frequently served as anything but impartial arbiters of justice." -- The Wall Street Journal "[ Cult of Glory ] rigorously chronicles two centuries of Ranger misadventures and atrocities, as well as commendable operations undertaken by the Rangers in recent decades . . . [and] strives to be as panoramic as possible, telling a big story on a big canvas . . . it also strives to supplant the Ranger narratives of yore by synthesizing decades of others research as well as Swansons own findings." --John Phillip Santos, Texas Monthly "Magisterial . . . lays bare [the Rangers] long record of savagery, lawlessness, and racism." -- The Chicago Tribune "For any student of Texas history, [ Cult of Glory ] is a treasure, on several levels . . . A fascinating historical narrative, packed with colorful episodes and outsize characters . . . In setting the record straight about the Texas Rangers, Swanson clarifies and enriches the remarkable story of Texas for everyone." -- Houston Chronicle "A harrowing deep dive into the Rangers darkest moments . . . What Swanson found in his thousands of documents is that the history of the Rangers is hardly a pretty picture when it comes to documenting their treatment of people of color." -- The Dallas Morning News "In an era in which some desire a return to a perceived greatness, books like this remind us greatness is often reliant on the selective memory of storytellers." -- Library Journal (starred review) "This boldly revisionist account takes no prisoners." -- Publishers Weekly " Cult of Glory is a masterpiece of American history. Period. Doug Swanson has taken on the Texas Ranger legend in all of its terrifying magnificence, disassembled it, and created in its place a real, true, and shockingly new history." --S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon "Utterly absorbing and sweeping in scope. Doug J. Swanson has stripped away the clich Excerpt from Book Prologue The Real Ranger There is not, nor has there ever been, a group quite like the Texas Rangers. For almost two hundred years the Rangers have created, maintained, and promoted an image of bold knights in cowboy hats who brought peace, law, and civilization to a violent, lawless, and uncivilized land. They have inspired hundreds of tales that relate their extraordinary toughness, skill, bravery, and heroism. Some of these are true. The Rangers trace their origins to 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. As an irregular militia, they had no uniform, no flag, and-for decades-no badge. They were volunteers who arrived young, adventurous, and practically immune to danger. The early Rangers fought Indians, Mexicans, and many unfortunate others. A newspaper headline of the era called them "The Fightingest Men on Earth." Later they chased rustlers, smugglers, and roving gangs of marauders. As Texas changed in the mid-twentieth century, so did the Rangers, who were transformed into a force of professional state police pursuing gangsters, kidnappers, and lawbreakers of all stripes. The roles may have been altered, but the myth remained. Nearly all societies foster creation narratives that recall their idealized selves. Because it was once an independent republic-for less than ten years, but fiercely independent nonetheless-Texas possesses a deep well of such material. The Alamo, with its mass sacrifice and valorous struggle, probably shines the brightest. If so, the Rangers run a close second. "Nowhere," historian T. R. Fehrenbach wrote, "was the frontier violence in America so bloody, or so protracted, as on the soil of Texas." It is hard, maybe impossible, to believe the vast and wild territory that was Texas could have been tamed without the Rangers. With their eagerness to engage all manner of armed opponents under the harshest conditions, the Rangers played an essential role in Texass development and ethos. Yet most Texans, with the exception of those in law enforcement-and some criminals-probably have never even seen a real Ranger. As of this writing there are fewer than 160 active Rangers in a state with 254 counties and a population of twenty-nine million. They have always been a small, elite force. Its the image that grew big. The model Ranger has long been depicted as tall, steely-eyed, and strong-jawed. He shoots straight and brooks no challenge to the law or his personal code of honor. He can handle any situation. And he carries the role well, as journalist Richard Harding Davis observed in 1892. "There are still the Texas Rangers," Davis wrote, "and in them the man from the cities of the East will find the picturesqueness of the Wild West show and its happiest expression." Davis visited a Ranger camp in South Texas, marveled at their shooting skills, and gushed, "Some of them were remarkably handsome in a sun-burned, broad-shouldered, easy, manly way." No law enforcement agency has been celebrated so much for so long in popular culture. Beginning in 1910, when a silent picture called The Rangers Bride flickered briefly, more than three hundred movies and television series have featured a Ranger. Hollywood has, for example, given the world The Texas Ranger (1931), The Texas Rangers (1936), The Texas Rangers (1951), Texas Rangers (2001), and The Texas Rangers Ride Again (1940), as well as Red Hot Rangers (1947), The Fighting Ranger (1934 and 1948), Bandit Ranger (1942) and The Ranger and His Horse (1912). In 1943 alone, no fewer than seventeen feature films incorporated Ranger characters. Among them were Hail to the Rangers, The Return of the Rangers, and Border Buckaroos. John Wayne played a Ranger on the big screen. So did Audie Murphy, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Clint Eastwood too. In King of the Texas Rangers, released in 1941, legendary quarterback Sammy Baugh portrayed a Ranger thwarting enemy agents who attempt to attack Texas oil fields from a zeppelin. Perhaps the most famous imaginary Ranger of them all-at least until Chuck Norris employed martial arts as Walker, Texas Ranger on television-was the Lone Ranger. Tales "from those thrilling days of yesteryear" began in radio serials and moved to television and film. The Lone Ranger owned a crime-fighting career that has spanned almost ninety years. Dime novels and western pulp fiction presented the Rangers to generations of readers. Magazines like Texas Rangers, published from 1936 to 1958, delivered lively tales-"Lone Star Doom," for example, and "Pecos Poison"-monthly by mail. Larry McMurtrys 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into an acclaimed television series, had two ex-Rangers as its protagonists. Even bodice-ripper novels have done their part. To Love a Texas Ranger, published in 2016, gave readers the exquisitely named Sam Legend, who brings his exceptional skills to both a gunfight and the boudoir. He also offers rugged good looks. The presentation of the quintessential Ranger owes much to fictional renderings, but a good portion of it came from the Rangers themselves. "For courage, patriotic devotion, instant obedience, and efficiency, the record of the Texas Rangers has been excelled by no body of constabulary ever mustered," wrote James B. Gillett, who joined the force in 1875. "For bravery, endurance and steadfast adherence to duty at all times the Ranger is in a class by himself." Scholar AmZrico Paredes assessed it as an extension of Anglo Texans claims to racial superiority. "The Texan has no equal anywhere," he wrote of this attitude, "but within Texas itself there developed a special breed of men, the Texas Rangers, in whom the Texans qualities reached their culmination." Some writers insist this larger-than-life portrait is drawn from real life. Historian Walter Prescott Webb spent years studying the force. "The real Ranger," he wrote in 1935, "has been a very quiet, deliberate, gentle person who could gaze calmly into the eye of a murderer, divine his thoughts, and anticipate his action, a man who could ride straight up to death." Webb painted this real Ranger as a solitary and essential defender of civilization. "When we see him at his daily task of maintaining law, restoring order, and promoting peace-even though his methods be vigorous-we see him in his proper setting, a man standing alone between society and its enemies." In such contemplations, the title alone conveys superior power. "There is no question but that a definite potency exists in the name Texas Ranger," a former commander of the force wrote. "Take two men of equal size and arm them with identical weapons. Call one of them a deputy sheriff and the other a Ranger. Send each of these officers out to stop a mob or quell a riot. The crowd will resist the deputy, but will submit to the authority of the Ranger." Nurtured by popular culture over generations, the American West of the imagination has maintained consistent characters and situations: cowboys, Indians, cattle drives, gunfights. The real West was, of course, far more complicated. But those figures, incidents, and morality plays endure, and the Rangers were in many ways the progenitors and archetypes. Their emergence as folk heroes on horseback-initially a product of their service in the Mexican War-predated by several decades the rise of the American cowboy. Their battles with Indians came well in advance of many historic conflicts with Native Americans in the western United States. And they were shooting it out with outlaws long before Wyatt Earp drew down on the Clanton gang in Tombstone, Arizona. The unfaltering romance of the western frontier-in all its epic violence, grandeur, and oversimplifications-took root and was nurtured in Texas with the Rangers. Joe Davis was a real Ranger. He joined in 1969 and spent twenty-four years with the force. He had wanted to be a Ranger since he was fourteen-inspired by TV shows such as Tales of the Texas Rangers, which melded crime fighting, civic virtue, and cowboy trappings. "The good guys wore the white hats, and the Rangers were the good guys," he said. "And the good guys always won." After retiring from the agency, Davis worked to raise money for the Texas Ranger Heritage Center in the city of Fredericksburg. But one museum does not satiate interest in the Rangers. Theres also the state-approved Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco. Both tell of the dedicated and effective men who lived up to the good-guy, white-hat ideal. Many of these men risked their lives-and some lost their lives-in the line of duty. Frequently outnumbered, the Rangers depended on canniness, fortitude, and courage to win the day. That has strong appeal, but its the moral component that truly resonates with the public, Davis said. "The Rangers have always stood up for doing whats right, and doing the right thing. People are starving for stuff like that." The Rangers Details ISBN1101979879 Author Doug J. Swanson Short Title Cult of Glory Pages 480 Language English Year 2021 ISBN-10 1101979879 ISBN-13 9781101979877 Format Paperback Publication Date 2021-06-08 Subtitle The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2021-06-08 NZ Release Date 2021-06-08 US Release Date 2021-06-08 UK Release Date 2021-06-08 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Illustrations 25 B&W PHOTOS; 1 B&W MAP DEWEY 363.209764 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:140464114;

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