Nature and place in Texas : a history / edited by Kenna Lang Archer, Char Miller & Jason Pierce.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Archer, Kenna Lang, 1982- editor.

Miller, Char, 1951- editor.

Pierce, Jason E., editor.

Series:

Environmental Histories of Texas

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human ecology--Texas--History.

Human ecology.

Texas--Environmental conditions.

Texas.

Ecological regions--Texas--History.

Ecological regions.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 322 pages : illustrations (black & white) ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Texas history is often recounted through tales of revolution, oil booms, and cattle drives. But what if we considered a different lens - one shaped by wind and wildfire, rivers and drought, grasslands and pine forests? Nature and Place in Texas reimagines the Lone Star story by centering its ecosystems. This collection of essays by leading environmental historians reveals how the state's natural features - its plains, deserts, rivers, forests, and coastlines - have shaped and been shaped by human endeavor . . . ."-Back cover

Contents:

Introduction: environmental change and the invention of Anglo-Texas / Jason Pierce

Part 1: reading the land. Chapter 1: buffalo stories and eco-cultural impacts: Texan and Kiowan accounts of the Southern Plains bison / Alex Hunt

Chapter 2: Botany in the Texas borderlands: conquest, cacti, and the Chihuahuan Desert, 1827-1852 / Samuel Brunk

Chapter 3: living and dying near the limit: the transformation of the desert section of the Rio Grande border / C. J. Alvarez

Part 2: plains ecologies. Chapter 4: wind and flame / Julie Courtwright

Chapter 5: from fascists to farmworkers: the racialization of agricultural labor in Hereford, Texas, 1940-1990 / Tim Bowman

Part 3: watersheds. Chapter 6: the legacy of plantation slavery on Texas rivers / Scot McFarlane

Chapter 7: the hardest matter possible: hydrological development, public discourse, and the water policy in Texas / Kenna Lang Archer

Chapter 8: metropolitan Houston and its river / Andrew C. Baker

Chapter 9: changes in the river: the natural consequences of controlling El Río Grande a the Pass of the North / Alana de Hinojosa

Part 4: urbanscapes. Chapter 10: pipe dreams and fake lakes: engineering water in progressive-era Fort Worth / Todd Kerstetter

Chapter 11: finding oil, searching for authority / Brian Frehner

Part 5: playgrounds. Chapter 12: "Parks of every kind": state and national parks in Texas from the 1920s to the 1940s / Neel Baumgardner

Chapter 13: the limits of cooperation: the Texas State Parks Board and the management of Mission San José National Historic Site, 1941-1983 / Char Miller and Arthur R. Gómez

Afterword: pathways / Char Miller

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781682832820

1682832821

OCLC:

1591384881