Texas

This is the story of how a myth began with the Texas Revolution against Mexico cattle drives and hyperactive Texas Rangers and became embodied in larger-than-life figures from Sam Houston to Speaker Sam Rayburn from the explorer La Salle to L. B. J. It is also the story of a state larger than its myth a Confederate state that contained enclaves of pro-Union German-Americans a football-loving state that produced musicians of the sensitivity of Scott Joplin and Van Cliburn a western state that also is Southern Mexican and Spanish in its influences.