Alamo Almanac & Book of Lists

Rating:
Summary: An excellent source of information
Review: I enjoyed the well researched informative facts provided by the author. Mr. Chemerka has not tried to provide an in depth analysis of the fictional and non-fictional accounts although he does take editorial license here and there. Nonetheless, it is valuable to any Alamo researcher.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent source of information
Review: I enjoyed the well researched informative facts provided by the author. Mr. Chemerka has not tried to provide an in depth analysis of the fictional and non-fictional accounts although he does take editorial license here and there. Nonetheless, it is valuable to any Alamo researcher.

Rating:
Summary: ALAMO ALMANAC.
Review: When an author combines research findings with the aggregate information and knowledge born of his or her background, experience, environment, upbringing and training, the fortunate result can be a book like this one. It's content is a near-ideal melding of an author's acquired professional skills and his evident personal predilections. To paraphrase Aaron Copland, the dean of American composers, "If it's in the writing, it's in the man." As we're often defined (or even judged) by our choice of friends, we're often best represented by the results of our own work.

David Crockett was a frontiersman and adventurer (and a hunter, farmer, businessman, veteran of the Creek Indian War, town commissioner, militia colonel and Tennessee state legislator), who served for a time as a United States congressman. He was not a congressman who spent time as a frontiersman and adventurer. The very existence of this book exemplifies the principle of priority, a concept from which many of us could learn. The author of this work has evidently set a goal, which he's clearly met, of producing a book that can be read and enjoyed by the reader, not merely examined and studied by the scholar (though even they should surely benefit from it). The author, an educator, discusses matters that would be of interest to virtually anyone with even an indirect interest in Western history.

It seems the book's intent is for expanse and diversity rather than depth. This is not a negative judgement but a positive observation: there's no other book quite like it so its singularity makes it quite special. Seek not here thy standard detailed biographies - thou shalt not find them. There are countless tomes about Western history generally, Texas history specifically, and the Alamo in particular with its countless sub-species (biographies of Bowie, Crockett, Travis, volumes about the collective defenders, their descendants, etc). This book provides something rather unique, which adds to its value: a compendium of fascinating details that would be difficult, if not altogether impossible, to find in any other single volume. It can, indeed, be a blessing to the researcher and surely a delight to the reader.

Of particular interest is the Alamo Chronology, offering a virtually year-by-year account of the location and its events, and presenting a veritable Alamo timetable in microcosm. The Alamo from A to Z, the book's longest section, offers data too abundant even to summarize here, and defies description. Suffice it to say it's a virtual treasury of information, facts, tidbits and fascinating details, allowing us to vicariously do our own excavations on the Alamo grounds. The section titled Alamo Lists includes (but isn't limited to) rosters of the defenders, the survivors, the couriers, the best Alamo books, and even the best actors in Alamo films. Operatively, the book covers the Alamo in all its incarnations - from the historical and iconic entity to its popular cultural image.

The book contains both photos and well-executed illustrations by various people. One warranting mention is the superb rendering by California artist, blade collector and Bowie historian Joseph Musso, picturing the three most prominent Alamo defenders: Crockett, Bowie and Travis. Outstanding and fascinating maps of the actual assaults are provided by artist Rod Timanus.

Perhaps the most compelling illustration, however, is the reproduction of an 1849 Daguerreotype. It's compelling because it offers us a literal glimpse into the past: it's the only known photographic image of the Alamo showing the chapel as it looked (if not literally, then surely effectively) at the time of the siege - that is, BEFORE its distinctive hump was added to the upper façade by the U.S.Army in 1850. It seems more than just coincidence that the Alamo is the subject of this, the earliest datable photographic image taken in Texas and a mere 13 years from glory. By its very immediacy, the appearance of this picture in William Chemerka's book seems to enlarge and strengthen the links in the chain that binds us to our own history.

One can easily foresee the entirely predictable objections and ludicrous reactions the book will prompt from some quarters. We can safely anticipate the claim by some academics that it's not source material for scholars. Well, maybe this book isn't SUPPOSED to be. - - We must recognize that some people are hard of reading, being unable (or worse, unwilling) to gauge a finished, integral work by its own intrinsic value, and to understand and appreciate it for what it is. They prefer instead to view it tangentially, and to focus on what it is not. Alas this postural view is often taken in academe and is popularly known as a cop-out.

If this book isn't a be-all and end-all of Alamo history and won't be everything to everyone, it's because it isn't its purpose. It's not for those who get annoyed because goldfish aren't trained to do tricks or because dogs don't live in fish tanks. Those who can gauge something on its own merits are the exceptions, not the rule - but they're the gems in the settings of an author's readership. Those who would benefit most by this volume and would respond most positively to it are those with the prudence and integrity to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions. This principle brings to mind a relevant remark, made by Beethoven: when asked by the violinist Radicati about "the meaning" of the composer's late string quartets (virtually avant-garde music in his day), Beethoven replied in the most matter-of-fact manner and without a trace of conceit, "Oh, those are not for you, but for a later age."

Those academics who might not consider the contents of this book "source material for scholars" would be revealing more about themselves than about the book. For readers, it's superb material and is, in a phrase, highly recommended as an invaluable "at your fingertips" tool - for anyone - both as a reference work and as very enjoyable, even fascinating and, perhaps more importantly, enlightening reading.

JEFFREY DANE