Ebook Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis, by William C. Davis
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Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis, by William C. Davis
Ebook Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis, by William C. Davis
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Three Roads to the Alamo is the definitive book about the lives of David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis -- the legendary frontiersmen and fighters who met their destiny at the Alamo in one of the most famous and tragic battles in American history -- and about what really happened in that battle.
William C. Davis, a distinguished Civil War historian and biographer, illuminates the great western migration of the early 19th century through these remarkable figures -- representative of the three distinct types of men responsible for pushing American civilization west of the Mississippi.
Through tremendous research and with unprecedented access to Mexican military archives, Davis strips away the many layers of myth, legend and fable that surrounded Crockett, Bowie and Travis during their lives and, even more emphatically, after their deaths, portraying them as they really were -- heroic and unheroic, of great stature and deeply flawed, law abiding and lawbreaking.
Crockett stood for the thousands who were always on the edge of the wilderness, for whom no home was ever permanent. Bowie epitomized those who invariably followed'the entrepreneurs and exploiters, the men who profited, often outside the law, and moved on to the next potential bonanza. And Travis was the man of community and society, the lawgiver, the town builder, even the founder of a state or nation -- one of the millions who came to stay and create.
Though Travis, Crockett and Bowie came from different backgrounds and began their lives in different parts of the country at different times, they were united by their Scots-Irish heritage; by the restlessness and ambition that kept pushing them west to the frontier, which moved with them; by their involvement in the Texas settlement and revolution; and most famously by their meeting at the crossroads of the Alamo in the swift and deadly battle of March 6, 1836.
Because of their reputations and actions, these three men are deservedly the most legendary heroes of the Alamo. However, Davis has uncovered and reconstructed much of what actually happened, and he frequently challenges or debunks other versions of the battle, which have prevailed for more than a century.
Revealing, persuasive and controversial, Three Roads to the Alamo makes a significant contribution to American history and permanently changes and deepens our understanding and perception of the Alamo and these three American icons.Three Roads to the Alamo is a Main Selection of the History Book Club, an Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and an Alternate Selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club
- Sales Rank: #197949 in Books
- Brand: HarperCollins
- Published on: 1998-04
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.75" h x 6.75" w x 2.25" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 791 pages
Amazon.com Review
Ever since the day in March 1836 when an obscure Spanish mission in Texas fell to Mexican forces led by President Santa Anna, Americans have been exhorted to "remember the Alamo." And remember it we do--primarily as the place where American folk legends Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Travis met their end fighting for Texas independence. Though it is primarily the Alamo we remember today, the battle itself takes up just a few pages of William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo; Davis is far more interested in what brought three such disparate men as Crockett, Bowie, and Travis to Texas in the first place than in how they died there. As any schoolchild knows, Davy Crockett was the "king of the wild frontier," a bona fide folk hero in his own time who rode his legend to political office first in Tennessee and then as a United States congressman. Bowie was both less well known and less heroic--a land speculator not above resorting to fraud and forgery to get what he wanted, while William Travis, the youngest of the three, brought little but potential with him to Texas.
Davis does a good job of illuminating both the personalities of his subjects and the situation in which they found themselves in Texas. He thoroughly explores the lives of these three men--their successes, their failures, their hopes for the future--and lays out the arguments for and against Texan independence from Mexico in which they found themselves embroiled. By the time Crockett, Bowie, and Travis finally arrive at the Alamo, it seems the inevitable conclusion to the roads they each have been traveling over the course of their lifetimes. Three Roads to the Alamo is a fine piece of historical research and an entertaining read, as well.
From Publishers Weekly
In 1836, Bowie and Travis, who would lead the 200 doomed Texas rebels at the Alamo, met for the first time at the walled adobe buildings that were largely comprised of the church of San Jose y Santiago del Alamo de Parras. A few days later, David Crockett wandered in from Tennessee, where he had lost his bid for reelection to Congress and vowed never to return. In the siege of the compound, all three would die violently in the predawn hours of March 6. Crockett had long been a legend in his own time when he turned up in San Antonio to join Bowie and Travis in the pantheon of frontier gallants. Davis, a much-published historian of 19th-century America, contends that we "part reluctantly with our myths, and the more so when by removing the fable, we leave a hole in the story that we cannot fill with fact." In weaving the three strands of his narrative, which come together only in the last pages as the frontiersman, con man and entrepreneur join forces in the Alamo, Davis evokes boisterous Jacksonian America. His 187 pages of notes attest to the thoroughness of his research. Of the three, Crockett comes off the best, as inventive, yet not immoral like the other two. Bowie, a forger of land claims, and Travis, an unscrupulous country lawyer, hardly fit our prescription for heroes after Davis is done with them. His relentless search for facts sometimes bogs down the reader in excessive detail, yet that may be the best way to reduce romantic myths to reality. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Sure, many people remember the famous Davy Crockett show theme song, but who was he really, and what about the other two major figures who came together with Crockett in that dramatic last stand at the Alamo? Comparatively little has been written about Jim Bowie or William Travis, and so much of Alamo history is either tremendously partisan, ungrounded in historical realities, or both. Davis (A Way Through the Wilderness, LJ 2/1/95) has a dependable record of writing and research into early American, in particular Southern, history. His newest work is a readable, stimulating, and exceptionally well-researched narrative history of Crockett, Travis, Bowie, and the westward expansion they helped lead. Davis is the first writer, American or Mexican, to engage in substantial research in the official Mexican archives, and his work is a vast improvement over Don Graham's sophomorically iconoclastic and poorly edited book about the three men, Duel of Eagles (LJ 7/90). Highly recommended for any collection concerned with American expansion into the Southwest or Southern history and essential for regional collections.ACharles V. Cowling, SUNY at Brockport
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Had Davis decided to split this in the three books, there would be the best three books on these three Texas heroes ever
By Gene Rhea Tucker
William C Davis sometimes doesn't get his due from academic historians because he sells books. Most academics write dry, boring tomes that nobody reads because they are full of inane and pretentious theories that only interest other academic pedants. William C Davis, however, is a historian and the old mode. This book is thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly researched. The endnotes are several hundred pages long, and some of the individual notes spanned several pages. He explains in these notes where his sources come from how they're better than previous books, etc. Nobody, even the most academic of Texas historians, can quibble that this book is well researched, well written, and just flat out good. This is the best triple biography of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barrett Travis ever done. Had Davis decided to split this in the three books, there would be the best three books on these three Texas heroes ever. Davis corrects many historical inaccuracies about these characters, putting their lives into focus, defining them as men of their times. Jim Bowie was a land swindler and slave smuggler; Davy Crockett was a failure as both farmer and Congressman, probably a failure into being a second husband, and, in the end, unable to live up to a legend of his own making; William B. Travis was a debtor, an adulterer, and a horrible father; yet they are all representative of the frontier type, to various degrees, the men who turned the untamed wilderness of the American West into pure opportunity. It also serves as a decent introduction to the Texas Revolution, though the last chapter on actual battle of the Alamo was way too short. It was almost a letdown. Davis should have expended his talent, research, and industry into describing the muck mess that is the historiography and historical depiction of the battle (although he probably did that in his later book, specifically on the Texas Revolution, which I own but have not yet read). All in all, a brilliant book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
The Long Way to the Alamo
By Mark R. Brewer
THREE ROADS TO THE ALAMO is not really about the Alamo. Only a few pages are devoted to that epic battle. The book is a biography of the three most prominent men to have died there: David Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Travis. Each of their "roads" is quite long. Author William C. Davis has a reputation for detail, and he certainly lives up to it here. Parts of the book are dry and caught up in minutiae. This is especially so in the chapters that deal with Jim Bowie's false land claims.
These three men died as heroes at the Alamo, and that they certainly were. But they may not fit the popular image of heroes. Bowie was an especially unethical man, forging bogus land claims in Arkansas and Louisiana to such a great extent that officials in Washington D.C. took to calling all false land claims "Bowie claims." He sold land he didn't own, and went to Texas to escape arrest. He also lied to his Mexican father-in-law about his age and his wealth in order to win the man's daughter in marriage. He never invented the Bowie knife and never claimed to. That was done by his brother Rezin. In his defence, Bowie was a brave man, a ferocious fighter, and a natural leader. The Mexican's called him "the braggart."
William Travis ran to Texas to escape huge debt. He abandoned his wife and two small children, and his wife eventually sued him for divorce. He was also an excellent leader.
David Crockett (as he preferred to be called) was a good man and was honest to a fault, though he was also in debt for much of his life. Crockett was a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, a Jacksonian Democrat who broke with Jackson when that president got his Indian Removal Bill through Congress. Crockett felt it was unfair to Native Americans. He was up for reelection in 1835, and said if he lost, he would "go to hell or go to Texas." He chose the latter. Like Travis, he also left his wife and children behind.
Crockett was the most famous of the three. He had a reputation as fighter, a hunter, and a frontiersman, all of which were true, but he wanted to be known as a gentleman. He did not wear a coonskin cap.
Davis dispels the myths that surround these men and the battle for which they are best remembered, and there are many of them. This is the great value of his book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant book
By Demosthenese
I started out looking for a definitive biography of Jim Bowie and could not find one. But what I did find was this book, which wraps biographies of Bowie, David Crockett and William Travis together and separately until they all show up at the Alamo. The facts uncovered in this book are amazing. We all know that Travis was a lawyer who had some legal and social difficulties before moving to Texas, but this book spares nothing in the details. And Bowie ? A land swindler, forger, slave trader, liar. Again, the case made in this book is amazing. And Crockett ? We follow his career in the military, in Congress, and even in the route he took to get to Texas. This book is so well researched, it's scary. And well written as well. I loved it. And I learned a lot about three men who, no matter what their failings, were prepared to die for their belief in Texas. A great book. A brilliant book.
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