On April 27, 1997, Richard Lance McLaren and his followers in the so-called “Republic of Texas (ROT)” militia held Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe hostage inside their own home at the Davis Mountain Resort, near Fort Davis, Texas, and demanded the release of jailed ROT members Jo Ann Turner and Robert Jonathan Scheidt. McLaren’s demand initiated a seven-day standoff with local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers that came to be called the “Republic of Texas War.” Opening with a foreword by the FBI negotiator who served as an on-site consultant throughout the crisis, author Donna Marie Miller presents the first full-length book treatment of the events leading up to McLaren’s “declaration of war” and its aftermath. The result is an absorbing account of manipulation by a leader as charismatic as he was deluded; of misinformed individuals motivated by desperation who aligned themselves with an extremist; and of law enforcement officials caught in the tension between their duty to protect the public and their desire to avoid a repeat of disasters like those at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas. Central to the story is Jo Ann Turner, a frantic woman drowning in debt who was drawn into the false ideology espoused by McLaren, which eventually led to her personal undoing. Based on archival research and interviews with persons involved—including McLaren, who has been incarcerated since 1998—this riveting account provides a multifaceted perspective of the historical incident and a detailed chronicle of a modern American anti-government militia, its victims, and the events that led to its eventual downfall.

This history of secession in the Lone Star State offers both a vivid narrative and a powerful case study of the broader secession movement. In 1845, Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. Then, in 1861, they voted just as overwhelmingly to secede. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. It also has important implications for our understanding of secession across the South. Combining social and political history, Walter L. Buenger explores issues such as public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession could take place. Drawing on manuscript collections and contemporary newspapers, Buenger also analyzes election returns, population shifts, and the breakdown of populations within Texas counties. Buenger demonstrates that Texans were not simply ardent secessionists or committed unionists. At the end of 1860, the majority fell between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.

On July 8, 1860, fire destroyed the entire business section of Dallas, Texas. At about the same time, two other fires damaged towns near Dallas. Early reports indicated that spontaneous combustion was the cause of the blazes, but four days later, Charles Pryor, editor of the Dallas Herald, wrote letters to editors of pro-Democratic newspapers, alleging that the fires were the result of a vast abolitionist conspiracy, the purpose of which was to devastate northern Texas and free the region's slaves. White preachers from the North, he asserted, had recruited local slaves to set the fires, murder the white men of their region, and rape their wives and daughters. These sensational allegations set off an unprecedented panic that extended throughout the Lone Star State and beyond. In Texas Terror, Donald E. Reynolds offers a deft analysis of these events and illuminates the ways in which this fictionalized conspiracy determined the course of southern secession immediately before the Civil War. As Reynolds explains, all three fires probably resulted from a combination of extreme heat and the presence of new, and highly volatile, phosphorous matches in local stores. But from July until mid-September, vigilantes from the Red River to the Gulf of Mexico charged numerous whites and blacks with involvement in the alleged conspiracy and summarily hanged many of them. Southern newspapers reprinted lurid stories of the alleged abolitionist plot in Texas, and a spate of similar panics occurred in other states. States-rights Democrats asserted that the Republican Party had given tacit approval, if not active support, to the abolitionist scheme, and they repeatedly cited the "Texas Troubles" as an example of what would happen throughout the South if Lincoln were elected president. After Lincoln's election, secessionists charged that all who opposed immediate secession were inviting abolitionists to commit unspeakable depredations. Secessionists used this argument, as Reynolds clearly shows, with great effectiveness, particularly where there was significant opposition to immediate secession.Mining a rich vein of primary sources, Reynolds demonstrates that secessionists throughout the Lower South created public panic for a purpose: preparing a traditionally nationalistic region for withdrawal from the Union. Their exploitation of the "Texas Troubles," Reynolds asserts, was a critical and possibly decisive factor in the Lower South's decision to leave the Union of their fathers and form the Confederacy.

The FBI’s chief hostage negotiator recounts harrowing standoffs, including the Waco siege with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, in a memoir that inspired the miniseries Waco, now on Netflix. “Riveting . . . the most in-depth and absorbing section is devoted to the 1993 siege near Waco, Texas.”—The Washington Post In Stalling for Time, the FBI’s chief hostage negotiator takes readers on a harrowing tour through many of the most famous hostage crises in the history of the modern FBI, including the siege at Waco, the Montana Freemen standoff, and the D.C. sniper attacks. Having helped develop the FBI’s nonviolent communication techniques for achieving peaceful outcomes in tense situations, Gary Noesner offers a candid, fascinating look back at his years as an innovator in the ranks of the Bureau and a pioneer on the front lines. Whether vividly recounting showdowns with the radical Republic of Texas militia or clashes with colleagues and superiors that expose the internal politics of America’s premier law enforcement agency, Stalling for Time crackles with insight and breathtaking suspense. Case by case, minute by minute, it’s a behind-the-scenes view of a visionary crime fighter in action.

James and Annetta White opened the Broken Spoke in 1964, then a mile south of the Austin city limits, under a massive live oak, and beside what would eventually become South Lamar Boulevard. White built the place himself, beginning construction on the day he received his honorable discharge from the US Army. And for more than fifty years, the Broken Spoke has served up, in the words of White’s well-worn opening speech, “. . . cold beer, good whiskey, the best chicken fried steak in town . . . and good country music.” White paid thirty-two dollars to his first opening act, D. G. Burrow and the Western Melodies, back in 1964. Since then, the stage at the Spoke has hosted the likes of Bob Wills, Dolly Parton, Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, Marcia Ball, Pauline Reese, Roy Acuff, Kris Kristofferson, George Strait, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Asleep at the Wheel, and the late, great Kitty Wells. But it hasn’t always been easy; through the years, the Whites and the Spoke have withstood their share of hardship—a breast cancer diagnosis, heart trouble, the building’s leaky roof, and a tour bus driven through its back wall. Today the original rustic, barn-style building, surrounded by sleek, high-rise apartment buildings, still sits on South Lamar, a tribute and remembrance to an Austin that has almost vanished. Housing fifty years of country music memorabilia and about a thousand lifetimes of memories at the Broken Spoke, the Whites still honor a promise made to Ernest Tubb years ago: they’re “keepin’ it country.”