
Cult of Glory
The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers
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Narrated by:
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Kaleo Griffith
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By:
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Doug J. Swanson
“Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” (The New York Times Book Review)
A 21st-century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption.
The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going - one of the most famous of all law-enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors, and officially sanctioned killers.
Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the US Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force.
Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages - including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians - into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight.
Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West - the real and the false - are truly made.
©2020 Doug J. Swanson (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















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All this being said, I would not reccomend Cult of Glory.
A Historical Hit Piece
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The Rangers were an exaggerated version of their times: bigoted inclined to kill rather than control, immune from prosecution and having little or no constraints a story better than the best of the lawless west
They ruled and killed with intent Indians, Blacks, outlaws, Mexicans and people who were innocent. Women, children were killed without fear of a trial or fear of punishment Linked to the KKK and on the side of the Confederacy. A very good and interesting read
Texas Rangers
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First, my issues with the narration. I am a native Texan. If you are going to narrate a book about Texas, for heaven's sake, learn the correct pronunciations of locations and historical figures. Every time he mispronounced Bowie (as if we were talking about David Bowie), I cringed. I am from Bowie, Texas, named for Jim Bowie, so I found this particularly irritating. Add Pedernales, Beauford Jester, San Jacinto, Bastrop, Mexia, and countless others--it was enough to almost make me quit listening.
Next, the book itself. I was hoping for an in depth study of the Rangers and their history, good, bad, neutral. Instead this book does a recitation, in jumpy narrative, of one event after another. Though some are put in the brutal, usually racists, historical context, there is nothing to really explain the men--their back stories (with few exceptions), for example. The passing mention of Bonnie and Clyde is a disappointment (the extra-jurisdictional use of the former Rangers, for instance), the disbanding by Ma Ferguson (and their investigation of her leading up to ot) was barely mentioned, and the 21st Century Rangers are given short notice. The Henry Lee Lucas chapter disturbs me because of a glaring error--I met Sheriff Conway in the 70's when I worked as a dispatcher one summer during my college years. I knew his son for years later. I have never heard him called "Hound Dog". I cannot help but wonder what else may be wrong in his research that I just didn't recognize.
Even so, because there are few books on the Rangers I do recommend this, with a grain of salt, for people who are interested.
Okay, not great
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A reference to a specific incident in the book which I feel is just as applicable to the Rangers story is that their flaws aren't so much a history of the Rangers, as that of America and Texas.
Society tends to judge based on current beliefs, customs, and mores - not so much those in place at the time/place of those and the actions being judged.
Some of the legends are dispelled. But the Rangers remain no less legendary.
A more even-handed review of Ranger history
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This is a wonderfully researched and impeccably told story. Mr. Swanson is not out to "get the Rangers", he is a truth teller. I never felt like he was applying 21st century morality or norms to the Rangers behavior. Many of the acts that he depicted can be seen as far outside the norm and beyond reproach when they occurred. He does a wonderful job throughout the story of showing the power of the victor's. The Rangers either dictated their own history, or had many enablers do it for them. What he is doing is critically important to how we understand our past. The is a story that deconstructs a myth that should have never existed, because it didn't. The mystique of the Ranges was built in embellished half truths, exaggerations, and lies and he calls them out for it. There were still men that exhibited great heroism and were selfless in the service of their interests and that of the State of Texas. The Texas Rangers protected and helped prop up a Texas that was a myth to anyone that was not a white, Christian Anglo. This book is for them as much as it is for anyone else. It can finally acknowledge the pain and misery inflicted upon them, and the Rangers should confront that as strongly as Mr. Swanson does.
This has always been Texas
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Must Read(listen)!
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Excellent
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Los rinches
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Always Believe the Offenders
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No exceptions
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