When Phil Collins was a kid growing up in a London suburb, he would often watch an amazing show on his family television. There, in black and white, was Fess Parker as Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. As he matured, Collins not only acted out the exploits of his new hero, but he often refought the Battle of the Alamo with his toy soldiers. Even though music came to dominate his life, it was this love of history--and Davy Crockett and the Alamo in particular--that was always near by. On one musical tour, Collins encountered his first David Crockett autograph--for sale at a store called the Gallery of History. "I didn't know this stuff was out there, that you could own it," the rock-n-roll legend said. "It had never occurred to him. Later, he received a birthday-present that would change his life: a receipt for a saddle signed by an Alamo defender. From that point forward, the drummer began building his impressive Alamo and Texas Revolution collection. Here, for the first time in history, are the artifacts, relics, and documents that compose the Phil Collins collection, available in a beautifully designed color book shot-through with stunning photography and crisply rendered illustrations. Collins's prose takes the reader through the joys of being a collector as he lovingly describes what each piece in this impressive assemblage means to him. Photographer Ben Powell of Austin brought these items to vivid relief, and artist Gary Zaboly's masterful pen-and-ink drawings breath life into the items. Essays by Texas historians Bruce Winders, Don Frazier, and Stephen Hardin provide the historical background to the collection and help make this into a work of art that also serves handily as a serious research tool.
"The link below takes you to a crowd source funding site for Ben Powell's short documentary, Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier. It captures Phil Collins during the week-long book tour in June 2012."
http: //www.kickstarter.com/projects/722972912/phil-collins-and-the-wild-frontier

Hardly were the last shots fired at the Alamo before the Texas Revolution entered the realm of myth and controversy. French visitor Frederic Gaillardet called it a "Texian Iliad" in 1839, while American Theodore Sedgwick pronounced the war and its resulting legends "almost burlesque". In this new, highly readable history, Stephen L. Hardin discovers more than a little truth in both of those views. Drawing on many original Texan and Mexican sources and on-site inspections of almost every battlefield, he offers the first complete military history of the Revolution. From the war's opening in the "Come and Take It" incident at Gonzales to the capture of General Santa Anna at San Jacinto, Hardin clearly describes the strategy and tactics of each side. His research yields new knowledge of the actions of famous Texan and Mexican leaders, as well as fascinating descriptions of battle and camp life from the ordinary soldier's point of view. This in-depth coverage reveals the gallantry displayed by individuals on both sides of the conflict, as well as the atrocities of war. Most of all, it provides a balanced view of the Revolution that fairly assesses the conduct of both Texans and Mexicans. Texian Iliad belongs on the bookshelf of everyone interested in Texas or military history, as well as of general readers who want the facts behind the legends.

An Altar For Their Sons: The Alamo and the Texas Revolution in Contemporary Newspaper Accounts is a collection of rare documentary materials, the great majority of them not seen or referenced since their dates of original publication. This book has been designed to serve several audiences, among them the scholar, serious student, casual buff, and general reader, all of whom will find much that is "new" here in terms of the history of the Alamo siege and battle, of the Texas Revolution in general, and of the lives of the people involved, not to mention the events that both preceded and followed that conflict. Aside from the book's primary focus, the battle of the Alamo, this collection includes on-the-spot accounts of most of the other engagements, skirmishes and massacres, descriptions of the forts, towns, and geography, and information concerning the armies, weapons and clothing involved. There are also word sketches of the appearances of such important figures as David Crockett, James Bowie, and Santa Anna that have apparently eluded modern biographers. Included, too, are many anecdotes of their lives, both in and out of Texas, and descriptions of pieces of their personal property handed down in the postwar years. Newspaper accounts from later decades present interviews with survivors, or their obituaries, and descriptions of the Alamo itself as it evolved from a weed-choked ruin into an iconic shrine. The book contains several dozen original illustrations by the author, each one explained in-depth with a footnoted, essay-long "caption". There is also a newly created pictorial representation of the entire Alamo compound as it looked in February and March 1836, accompanied by a lengthy analysis of the fortifications based on a re-examination of the old evidence and a dissection of newly found information. Included photographs of selected Alamo- and Texas Revolution-related relics from the extraordinary collection of singer Phil Collins.