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Inventing Texas: Early Historians of the Lone Star State. By Laura Lyons McLemore. Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, c. 2004. Pp. [x], 130. $29.95, ISBN 1-58544-314-X.)
Historians have shown increasing interest recently in the interaction of popular myths with history. This volume explores why nineteenth-century Texas historians produced lasting myths that shaped memories of Texas's past.
Laura Lyons McLemore begins with two Spanish priests: Juan Agustín Morfí, who defended Franciscan missionaries against criticism as failed colonizers, and José Antonio Pichardo, who described Spanish presence in the region to offset United States claims. Their general histories of Texas were influenced by Enlightenment ideas.
A larger group of historians wrote in the 1830s and 1840s about the Texas Revolution. Shaped...