"Never Without Honor "features essays written in Memory of Ben H. Procter, a beloved mentor and friend who taught many people most of what they know about the practice of history, and even more about life. Historians, particularly those who practice their craft through appointments in higher education, fall into distinct categories: those known for publications; those who concentrate on teaching; and those who excel in teaching and sharing the yield of their research with others through spoken and written words. Ben Procter's record places him firmly in the latter camp. His book, "Not Without Honor: The Life of John H. Reagan," published by The University of Texas Press in 1962, remains the definitive biography of this Texas surveyor, political leader, and postmaster general of the Confederacy.

Texas "a whole other country"-a slogan that promotes tourism as much within the Lone Star State as elsewhere-is familiar to native Texans and those adopted sons and daughters who "got here just as quickly as they could." Texas is as varied as East Texas timberland, hundreds of miles of seashore, prairies of the Central and High Plains, and the dry desert of far West Texas. When traveling abroad and asked, "Where are you from?" residents of forty-nine of the United States usually respond, "the USA." Nearly every citizen of the Lone Star State will answer "Texas " The world encourages such chauvinism. Mass media celebrates and exploits Texas and Texans in television and motion pictures about the Alamo, Texas Rangers, the oil industry, and athletics, to name only a few genre. Texans' pride in their distinctiveness increases when their state is paraded-or satired-and they consciously "pass it on" to succeeding generations. But what does it mean to be a Texan? How did Texas come to be as it is? Texas: A Compact History provides answers to such questions about Texans and Texas. It tells the story of Texas history and provides thoughtful interpretations about the state's development, all with the general reader in mind-in a brief, easily read narrative. ARCHIE P. McDONALD is the author of numerous books dealing with various aspects of Texas history, including Back Then: Simple Pleasures and Everyday Heroes (State House Press, 2005)

Meet the twenty-six year old lawyer who commanded Texas' most famous garrison for thirteen incredible days and penned the words, "I shall never retreat or surrender-victory or death." William Barrett Travis is the first scholarly biography of the legendary Alamo commander. Historian Archie P. McDonald treats his subject not merely as a god-like hero, but as the complete human being that he was. The result is an in-depth study that searches for an understanding of Travis' character and multifaceted personality. The result is an exciting and entertaining, but above all contemplative analysis of Travis and the Texas War for Independence.