Interesting look at the 1830s and the paths three Americans -- Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and Wm. Travis -- took to their ultimate destination: the Alamo. Mexican politics of the time, too, and their effect on the Mexican and North American population of Texas. ( )

William C Davis sometimes doesn't get his due from academic historians because he sells books. Most academics write dry, boring tomes that nobody reads because they are full of inane and pretentious theories that only interest other academic pedants. William C Davis, however, is a historian and the old mode. This book is thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly researched. The endnotes are several hundred pages long, and some of the individual notes spanned several pages. He explains in these notes where his sources come from how they're better than previous books, etc. Nobody, even the most academic of Texas historians, can quibble that this book is well researched, well written, and just flat out good. This is the best triple biography of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barrett Travis ever done. Had Davis decided to split this in the three books, there would be the best three books on these three Texas heroes ever. Davis corrects many historical inaccuracies about these characters, putting their lives into focus, defining them as men of their times. Jim Bowie was a land swindler and slave smuggler; Davy Crockett was a failure as both farmer and Congressman, probably a failure into being a second husband, and, in the end, unable to live up to a legend of his own making; William B. Travis was a debtor, an adulterer, and a horrible father; yet they are all representative of the frontier type, to various degrees, the men who turned the untamed wilderness of the American West into pure opportunity. It also serves as a decent introduction to the Texas Revolution, though the last chapter on actual battle of the Alamo was way too short. It was almost a letdown. Davis should have expended his talent, research, and industry into describing the muck mess that is the historiography and historical depiction of the battle (although he probably did that in his later book, specifically on the Texas Revolution, which I own but have not yet read). All in all, a brilliant book. ( )

The legends and myths of the Alamo are well known. After you read this book you will know the truth about this ill-fated battle and three of the American heroes who were there. The lives of Crockett, Bowie and Travis will be brought into a whole new light. You wont want to put this book down. ( )

When I read the reviews for Davis's book one word always seemed to pop up: exhaustive. Exhaustive research, exhaustive detail, exhaustive portraits, exhaustive this, exhaustive that. It's true. There is so much detail given to not only the personalities and lives of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, but to the culture and landscape of both politics and era as well. It's as if the reader is witness to the pioneering growth of Louisiana, Texas and Virginia by default. History, politics and geography all rolled into one book.
Because not much is known about Crockett, Bowie and Travis each has become a legend beyond compare. Using as much information as he was able to research (exhaustively) Davis does a great job trying to dispel rumor and myth surrounding each man, admitting that these are men of folklorish proportions, but not much of it can be substantiated.
Confession: knowing there was no way I was going to finish this in time I skipped to the last chapter of the book. It is, of course, the end of Crockett, Bowie and Travis. Davis paints a tragic picture of what their last days must have been like in Alamo, Texas. The one image that kept playing in my mind was the uncertainty of their fates. When their families did not hear from them they could only speculate and worry. Word travelled slowly in those days. A telegram dispatched two weeks earlier can give loved ones the impression you are still alive despite the fact you died the next day. ( )

One Road Too Few

OK, that is a bit of a negative title, so I want to start off saying that I really enjoyed this book. One of the problems with the story of the Alamo is that it all too often is isolated in the time during the battle and not much of the events and lives of the participants are ever explored. This leaves a story disconnected from all that ran up to it, all that caused it.

William C. Davis does an admirable job assembling the lives of three people who are somewhat elusive in the historical record until their "big day" at the Alamo (even Crocket has his blank spots in his history). It is important info that informs us all why these men were "that" Travis, Crocket and Bowie.

He gives them life in a narrative that quickly moves in a conversational style. Further, he does an admirable job not judging these men on today's more "civilized" standards, allowing us to come to know the men as they were, in their day, without being weighed down by modern approbations and regrettable "social" historical analysis so popular with too many historians.

Now the criticism: As my little review title suggests I feel that there was one road, one equally important, not explored that led to the Alamo. It is a road that is just as important as the other roads Davis explores; that of Travis, Crocket, and Bowie.

It is a road without which the Alamo would not have occurred, propelling the three heroes into American mythology. It is the road traveled by Santa Anna.

Of course, at 587 pages, this tome is already a bit larger than the average popular treatment of any particular historical event and it is probable that Davis struggled to keep the story under one thousand! Still, Santa Anna's journey was just as tumultuous, interesting and central to the story as Travis, Crocket, and Bowie's, and just as important.

Davis admits that he started with the idea of a Bowie bio, so it isn't surprising that he dwelled on Bowie more so than the other two. But, given the re-direction he took with his story a little less on Bowie could have sufficed as the story of Santa Anna was included.

After reading the book, I felt a hole in the story. Why, exactly, did the Mexicans do all they did? Not just during the months preceding the Alamo, but for the decade before. How did Santa Anna get to his position? What drove him to lay siege to the Alamo and that small band of Norteamericanos? I know Santa Anna is not the American hero that the other three are, but where is the hero without the villain?

In any case. This book is highly recommended for anyone wanting a well researched story of the actions and personalities that led up to the Alamo. Even with that one small detraction, I say read it! ( )