The history of New Texas, the Texas we know today—oil-rich, insufferably loud, and unbearably proud of itself—begins in the late 1920s, when a horned frog wakes from its thirty-one-year nap in a courthouse cornerstone and flabbergasts the nation. In slightly over two decades ten individuals—their words, actions, and accomplishments—come to define the New Texas of the twenty-first century. While the history of Old Texas rests on oft-told legends of Houston, Austin, Travis, Crockett, Rusk, Lamar, and Seguin, today’s New Texas—proud, loud, self-promotional, sports-crazy, and too rich for its own good—is the Texas that percolates throughout the nation’s popular culture. In Texas Loud, Proud, and Brash: How Ten Mavericks Created the Twentieth-Century Lone Star State, author Rusty Williams profiles ten largely unsung men and women responsible for the Texas you love, hate, and (secretly) envy today. Sidebar content throughout the book features historic anecdotes and words of wit and wisdom from Boyce House’s numerous speeches and books about Texas.

In 1950 Dallas was a spirited Texas town of some regional importance; by 1980 it was an international city, one of the nation’s most populous, a center of trade, transportation, finance, pro sports, and popular culture. Historic Photos of Dallas in the 50s, 60s, and 70s documents this amazing transformation with seldom-seen photographs of the period. Nearly 200 historic images show Dallas in the process of refashioning its skyline, its streets, its institutions, its public behavior, and its sense of self and worth. Historic Photos of Dallas in the 50s, 60s, and 70s blends striking black-and-white images with crisp commentary to chronicle moments of joy, pride, and anguish during these tumultuous decades. This volume takes readers back to the not-so-long-ago Dallas of trolley buses, downtown movie theaters, and four-lane expressways, then shows how the city transcended its parochial beginnings to become one of the most dynamic American cities of the twentieth century.