Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth

Bryan Burrough's "Forget the Alamo" is a thought-provoking and deeply researched book that challenges many of the long-held myths and legends surrounding the Alamo, one of the most iconic events in Texas history. Burrough, along with co-authors Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford, carefully examines the historical record and presents a more nuanced and complex view of the battle and its aftermath.One of the key strengths of the book is the way in which it examines the ways in which the Alamo has been mythologized and used for political purposes over the years. Burrough and his co-authors show how different groups - from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to the Texas Republican Party - have used the Alamo as a symbol of their own particular agendas, often at the expense of historical accuracy.The writing in "Forget the Alamo" is engaging and accessible, and the book is full of fascinating anecdotes and details that bring the period to life. The authors also do an excellent job of placing the events of the Alamo in their broader historical context, showing how the battle was part of a larger struggle for power and control in Texas and the wider region.Overall, "Forget the Alamo" is a compelling and important work of historical scholarship that challenges readers to think critically about how we remember and commemorate the past.

There are few symbols of Texas as beloved as the Alamo. Sure, it's a dark, dingy, badly-maintained and profoundly underwhelming little museum, and sure, the structure everybody pictures at the mention of its name was where the women and wounded took shelter rather than the site of the defenders' bloody last stand. But so what? So what if its trademark hump didn't get tacked on until decades after the battle, so that its famous silhouette is about as historically authentic as your neighborhood Taco Bell? And so what if the whole darn thing would have been demolished a hundred years ago if not for the efforts of a couple of determined San Antonio society ladies? None of that is the point. It's history, dammit. It's the Alamo. You don't mess with the Alamo.Apparently that's how a lot of my fellow Texans feel. Some of them feel it so strongly that they'll turn up, AR-15s strapped across their chests, to protest anything they don't like that might be happening at or to the Cradle of Texas Liberty. It's no surprise, then, that a book titled Forget the Alamo would ruffle some feathers around here. Even so, I found it hard to believe that our Governor and Lt. Governor (both of whom love to sneer at the culture-canceling snowflakes down the street at the University of Texas) would go so far as to cancel an author-led discussion of the book at a museum in San Antonio. This move backfired spectacularly, by the way, as it gave what would have probably been a fairly unremarkable book release a Texas-sized helping of free publicity, and moved a great many people (myself included) who might not have otherwise paid the book any attention at all to buy it and read it, if only to see what the fuss was about.For myself, I found Forget the Alamo to be an informative and entertaining read. The less well-known facts about 1830s Texas that it serves up (Father of Texas Stephen F. Austin's thoughts on the necessity of slavery, for example) don't seem to be newly discovered or hotly contested; they just don't always fit neatly into our state's Lonestar-spangled mythology, and have therefore been conveniently forgotten by generations of Texas History teachers and their students.Most of the book, however, doesn't focus on the actual Battle of the Alamo at all, but examines the history of the history; how the Alamo has been studied, remembered, and celebrated over the course of nearly 200 years, and the complicated relationship between its larger-than-life legacy and how the often one-sided, jingoistic, and tone-deaf telling of its story has affected generations of Texans. It also delves into the present-day wrangling over the preservation and interpretation of the Alamo site (SPOILER ALERT: it's a bit of a mess).And then, of course, in the middle of it all, there's poor, sweet, silly Phil Collins (yes, THAT Phil Collins), who should probably have watched a season or two of Pawn Stars before he went shopping for Alamo relics...In conclusion, if your blood pressure spikes at the mere suggestion that the John Wayne version of Texas History might not be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Forget the Alamo probably isn't for you. If, however, you can handle a bit of nuance and perspective, if you can accept that Texas can have some problematic events and people in its history (which it absolutely does) and still be a great place to live (which it absolutely is), then you should read this book. It may not convince you to forget the Alamo, but it will definitely change how you remember it.

As of this writing I am seventy-one years old, and I well remember learning about the Battle of the Alamo when I was in junior high school in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1966 or thereabouts. What I learned was a brief reinforcement of the heroic story of the "heroes of the Alamo" that I had been fed, first in the 1950s by Walt Disney, with Fess Parker as "Davey" Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier), and then again in 1960, with John Wayne taking over as Crockett and fighting for freedom against the evil Mexicans.As propaganda, it was wonderful; as history, it was garbage. The book, "Forget the Alamo", is a well-written and necessary corrective to the false narrative an entire generation of Americans was fed, and which a determined, but ever-dwindling number of Texans are fighting hard to maintain.I decided to write this review after reading a number of the one- and two-star reviews of the book, every single one of which I think is weak and incorrect. Another reason I wrote this review is that after twenty-plus years of teaching World HIstory to seventh graders in Los Angeles, two years ago I was assigned to also teach American History to my school's eighth graders. In studying what I was to teach, I realized how completely I had been lied to when I was learning American History in the 1960s.Texas right now is engaged in a desperate battle to preserve the myth of its history and to suppress the telling of its historical truths. If I used excerpts from this book to teach in Texas, as I do in Los Angeles, I would lose my job and quite possibly my teaching credential. Texas, as the second-most populous state in the country, has tremendous power over the textbook industry, and one publisher, in order to sell its geography texts in Texas, actually referred to the enslaved Africans brought over on the Middle Passage as "immigrants", as though they chose to come to America to seek a better life. It was just last year that a group of Texas educators wanted to refer to slavery as "involuntary relocation" in second-grade classes. And back in the 1960s, Texas students of Mexican heritage were regularly accused of having "killed Davey". That's how powerful a hold the Disney and Wayne versions of the Alamo had on young people back then.History is only history if it is true. This book is a necessary corrective to the myth of the Alamo and its defenders. I would have given it five stars, but for me it went on way too long and in way too much detail about the struggle over the Alamo's history well into the twentieth century.

Armed conflicts come with a heavy dose of myth making, and the battle for the Alamo is no exception. What is more striking about this case is that the effort to whitewash what was basically a slave-owner revolt keeps on going (now with a museum full of questionable "historical" artifacts). Many of the things that students in Texas are told about the Alamo are lies (some very ugly lies) but the conservative authorities want to prevent anyone from learning the truth. This is what makes this book so important; up until now, very few people were concerned with this elaborate campaign to perpetuate a deceit.

This is well worth a read. A lot of research into what happened, who was there, and why. Demolishes the age old myths. Then it carries on into what happened afterwards right up to near present day. A lot of stuff going on and it's not over yet. Changing demographics and attitudes are going to redefine how people regard the Alamo and what it represents. This is an excellent book and needs to be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in this wee bit of history. A battle that didn't need to take place.

Most Americans and, indeed, many non-Americans, are familiar with the story of the Alamo. It’s the complex of buildings in San Antonio, Texas, where brave frontiersmen such as Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and their leader, William Barret Travis, fought to the death against an overwhelming army of Mexican soldiers. Their cause was just and their deaths glorious. The reality, however, is very much more layered.Three authors, Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford have written a fascinating book, “Forget the Alamo”, that turns so much of the accepted legend on its head. And rightly so as the legend is clearly a long way from the truth.Here are just a handful facts that may change perceptions:1. The Americans who moved into Texas when it was Mexican territory were promoters of slavery for cotton plantations. They also had little interest in paying taxes.2. The Mexicans turned a blind eye to the behaviour of the Americans until they could do so no longer.3. While all American defenders in the Alamo died, some, including Crockett, probably surrendered and were subsequently executed.4. On a personal level, Crockett, Bowie and Travis were really quite disreputable individuals.The authors have no real axe to grind beyond saying that history is more complex than the one that has been hijacked by the white Texan ascendancy. In fact, this is typically always the case. When history has been dumbed down to a simple explanation without texture, you can be confident that you are being mislead. This is certainly the case with the Alamo. A more nuanced history may well be in the process of being written.

For anyone who subscribes to the legend that the Alamo stands for liberty and is in anyway heroic, this alternative version is a "must read". There is missing information in the standard Alamo story and this book fills in many missing facts. Such as Mexico's banning of slavery and how that is omitted from the official history of Texas.My only criticism is the portrayal of David Crockett. Crockett voted AGAINST the Indian Removal Act put forward by Andrew Jackson and for this he lost his congressional seat. He should, at the very least, be recognized for this.

The more history you read, the more you realise that the history you learned of the child is not only misleading, but usually wrong. Not just somewhat wrong, usually 180° wrong. One of the first books I read the child was ‘Remember the Alamo!’ by Robert Penn Warren. This book, Forget the Alamo, proves my point made above. But it is always traumatic, for an individual, as well as for a country, to find cherished historical myths laid bare and disproven. The battle of the Alamo will continue.