Author(s): Char Miller (Editor), Molly Ivins (Foreword)
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Publication Date: 23 Sept. 2004
Edition: Illustrated
Language: English
Print length: 432 pages
ISBN-10: 1595340017
ISBN-13: 9781595340016
Book Description
For the past five decades the Texas Observer has been an essential voice in Texas culture and politics, championing honest government, civil rights, labor, and the environment, while providing a platform for many of the state’s most passionate and progressive voices. Included are ninety-one selections from Roy Bedichek, Lou Dubose, Ronnie Dugger, Dagoberto Gilb, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Larry McMurtry, Maury Maverick Jr., Willie Morris, Debbie Nathan, and others.
To mark the Observer’s fiftieth anniversary, Char Miller has selected a cross section of the best work to appear in its pages. Not only does the collection pay homage to an important alternative voice in Texas journalism, it also serves as a progressive chronicle of a half-century of life in the Lone Star Statea state that has spawned three presidents in the last forty years. If Texas is, as some say, a crucible for national politics, then
Fifty Years of the Texas Observercan be read as a casebook for issues that concern citizens in all fifty states. Molly Ivins’s foreword gives historical background for the Observer and sets the stage for the book.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The Texas Observer tells it like it is―and tells it the way most newspapers can’t, or won’t. Fifty Years of the Texas Observer delivers stories that will make you laugh and cry, and finally shake your head in sheer disbelief. Be grateful for the Texas Observer―for the past fifty years and the future.”― Ann Richards, former governor of Texas
“The conventional wisdom might be that yesterday’s news belongs in the recycle bin, but for those who love and yearn for a better Texas, this book proves otherwise.”―
Austin Chronicle
About the Author
Char Miller, formerly a professor of history at Trinity University, is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. He is the author of the award-winning Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas, and Public Lands/Public Debates: A Century of Controversy, as well as the editor of On the Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio and Fifty Years of the Texas Observer. His most recent books for Trinity University Press are Not So Golden State: Sustainability vs. the California Dream and On the Edge: Water, Immigration, and Politics in the Southwest. Miller is a frequent contributor to print, electronic, and social media.
Molly Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, political commentator, humorist, and best-selling author. A seasoned journalist, she was an editor and writer with the Texas Observer from 1970 to 1976.