A photographic and descriptive guide to the diverse plant life of the Big Bend region of Texas, including uncommon or rare species such as orchids.

A long needed account of the human invasion of this rugged Texas desert land.

Texas is as well known for its diversity of landscape and culture as it is for its enormity. But West Texas, despite being popularized in film and song, has largely been ignored by historians as a distinct and cultural geographic space. In West Texas: A History of the Giant Side of the State, Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud rectify that oversight. This volume assembles a diverse set of essays covering the grand sweep of West Texas history from the ancient to the contemporary. In four parts—comprehending the place, people, politics and economic life, and society and culture—Carlson and Glasrud and their contributors survey the confluence of life and landscape shaping the West Texas of today. Early chapters define the region. The “giant side of Texas” is a nineteenth-century geographical description of a vast area that includes the Panhandle, Llano Estacado, Permian Basin, and Big Bend–Trans-Pecos country. It is an arid, windblown environment that connects intimately with the history of Texas culture. Carlson and Glasrud take a nonlinear approach to exploring the many cultural influences on West Texas, including the Tejanos, the oil and gas economy, and the major cities. Readers can sample topics in whichever order they please, whether they are interested in learning about ranching, recreation, or turn-of-the-century education. Throughout, familiar western themes arise: the urban growth of El Paso is contrasted with the mid-century decline of small towns and the social shifting that followed. Well-known Texas scholars explore popular perceptions of West Texas as sparsely populated and rife with social contradiction and rugged individualism. West Texas comes into yet clearer view through essays on West Texas women, poets, Native peoples, and musicians. Gathered here is a long overdue consideration of the landscape, culture, and everyday lives of one of America’s most iconic and understudied regions.

Winner, 2018 Carroll Abbott Memorial Award, sponsored by the Native Plant Society of Texas The Trans-Pecos region of Texas is home to a variety of big game species, including desert mule deer, pronghorn, desert bighorn sheep, white-tailed deer, elk, feral hog, and javelina; several species of exotics, such as aoudad, axis deer, and blackbuck antelope; and domestic livestock that includes cattle, horses, goats, sheep, and bison. Prepared by a team of range specialists at the Borderlands Research Institute in Alpine, Texas, this field guide will allow the area’s ranch managers, private landowners, resource professionals, students, and other outdoor enthusiasts to identify the key woody plants that serve as valuable forage for these animals. Encompassing 18 West Texas counties, with application in like habitats in the western Hill Country and southern Rolling Plains as well as in northern Mexico and eastern New Mexico, the book provides a thorough introduction to the natural features of the region and descriptions, nutrition values, and management prescriptions for 84 species of browse plants. In addition to informing readers about the diet of the region’s large animals, this fully illustrated, user-friendly reference also intends to inspire the continued good stewardship of the land they inhabit.

The second installment of a no-holds-barred look at the history of the famed Texas Rangers from western author Mike Cox Following up on his magnificent history of the 19th century Texas Rangers, Mike Cox now takes us from 1900 through the present. From horseback to helicopters, from the frontier cattle days through the crime-ridden boom-or-bust oil field era, from Prohibition to World War II espionage to the violent ethnic turbulence of the ‘50s and ‘60s--which sometimes led to demands that the Texas Rangers be disbanded. Cox takes readers through the modern history of the famed Texas lawmen. Cox's position as a spokesperson for the Texas department of Public Safety allowed him to comb the archives and conduct extensive personal interviews to give us this remarkable account of how a tough group of horse-borne lawmen--too prone to hand out roadside justice, critics complained--to one of the world's premier investigative agencies, respected and admired worldwide. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.