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In "The Texas Right: The Radical Roots of Lone Star Conservatism,"
some of our most accomplished and readable historians push the
origins of present-day Texas conservatism back to the decade
preceding the twentieth century. They illuminate the initial
factors that began moving Texas to the far right, even before the
arrival of the New Deal.
By demonstrating that Texas politics foreshadowed the partisan
realignment of the erstwhile Solid South, the studies in this book
challenge the traditional narrative that emphasizes the right-wing
critique of modern America voiced by, among others, radical
conservatives of the state's Democratic Party, beginning in the
1930s. As the contributors show, it is impossible to understand the
Jeffersonian Democrats of 1936, the Texas Regular movement of 1944,
the Dixiecrat Party of 1948, the Shivercrats of the 1950s, state
members of the John Birch Society, Texas members of Young Americans
for Freedom, Reagan Democrats, and most recently, even, the Tea
Party movement without first understanding the underlying impulses
that produced their formation.
The Texas Left. Some would say the phrase is an oxymoron.
For most of the twentieth century, the popular perception of Texas
politics has been that of dominant conservatism, punctuated by
images of cowboys, oil barons, and party bosses intent on
preserving a decidedly capitalist status quo.
In fact, poor farmers and laborers who were disenfranchised,
segregated, and, depending on their ethnicity and gender,
confronted with varying levels of hostility and discrimination,
have long composed the "other" political heritage of Texas. In "The
Texas Left," fourteen scholars examine this heritage.
Though largely ignored by historians of previous decades who
focused instead on telling the stories of the Alamo, the Civil War,
the cattle drives, and the oilfield wildcatters, this parallel
narrative of those who sought to resist repression reveals themes
important to the unfolding history of Texas and the Southwest.
Volume editors David O'Donald Cullen and Kyle G. Wilkison have
assembled a collection of pioneering studies that provide the broad
outlines for future research on liberal and radical social and
political causes in the state and region.
Among the topics explored in this book are early efforts of women,
blacks, Tejanos, labor organizers, and political activists to claim
rights of citizenship, livelihood, and recognition, from the
Reconstruction era until recent times.
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