Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head.
... requires a tolerance for some lowbrow jocularity, especially in the opening chapters...But the narrative soon hits its stride, and the story becomes a lively and absorbing one ... Much of the fun of the book derives from how deftly it strips that varnish off and demolishes the prevailing (white) racist shibboleths.
... muscular prose that’s heavy on deadpan understatement ... The greatest surprise of Forget the Alamo is its clear-eyed explication of the ways politicians, educators, writers, filmmakers and TV executives used the Alamo to serve whatever message they were promoting ... Readers may well conclude that reclaiming the Alamo in all its complexity is a long-game proposition. Old stories die hard. What you cannot forget while reading this lively, entertaining and well-researched book is that there will always be another Alamo book, and another, and another after that. Myths take centuries to build and even longer to tear down. Let’s hope readers remember Forget the Alamo.
... engrossing ... Though much of this material will be familiar to some readers, the authors move the story along in a chatty and amusing style ... In what may come as a pleasant surprise to their academic audience, the authors think of their work less as a history than a historiography, which they properly describe as 'a history of the history'.
