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
About this listen
“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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The must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama Legends and Lies: The Patriots, an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders. The American Revolution was neither inevitable nor a unanimous cause. It pitted neighbors against each other as loyalists and colonial rebels faced off for their lives and futures. These were the times that tried men's souls: No one was on stable ground, and few could be trusted.
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Couldn't stop listening!
- By Erin on 08-05-16
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
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38 Nooses
- Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End
- By: Scott W. Berg
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In August 1862, after decades of broken treaties, increasing hardship, and relentless encroachment on their lands, a group of Dakota warriors convened a council at the tepee of their leader, Little Crow. Knowing the strength and resilience of the young American nation, Little Crow counseled caution, but anger won the day. Forced to either lead his warriors in a war he knew they could not win or leave them to their fates, he declared, "[Little Crow] is not a coward: he will die with you."
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Powerful condemnation of Manifest Destiny
- By Buretto on 09-26-19
By: Scott W. Berg
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Killing Jesus
- A History
- By: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of people have thrilled to best-selling authors Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, works of nonfiction that have changed the way we view history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God.
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The Jesus story in context
- By Kimberly on 10-01-13
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
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Texas Ranger
- The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde
- By: John Boessenecker
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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From the horseback days of the Old West through the gangster days of the 1930s, Hamer stood on the front lines of some of the most important and exciting periods in American history. He participated in the Bandit War of 1915, survived the climactic gunfight in the last blood feud of the Old West, battled the Mexican Revolution's spillover across the border, protected African Americans from lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, and ran down gangsters, bootleggers, and Communists.
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I love Frank Hamer, but Boessenecker's left leanin
- By A. Taylor on 04-06-19
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Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves
- Race and Ethnicity in the American West Series #1
- By: Art T. Burton
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Art T. Burton sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late 19th-century America - and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Fluent in Creek and other Southern native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Bass Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws, and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
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inspiring story and insightful
- By Derrick on 12-17-15
By: Art T. Burton
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To Hell on a Fast Horse
- The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett
- By: Mark Lee Gardner
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Billy the Kid - a.k.a. Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William Bonney - was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue, and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies. Two of his victims were Lincoln County, New Mexico, deputies, killed during the Kid's brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on April 28, 1881.
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Great Listen
- By Susan Stilley on 10-06-21
By: Mark Lee Gardner
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The Feud
- The Hatfields and McCoys: The True Story
- By: Dean King
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Filled with bitter quarrels, reckless affairs, treacherous betrayals, relentless mercenaries, and courageous detectives, The Feud is the riveting story of two frontier families struggling for survival within the narrow confines of an unforgiving land. It is a formative American tale, and in it, we see the reflection of our own family bonds and the lengths to which we might go in order to defend our honor, our loyalties, and our livelihood.
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Get out the pad and pencil .....
- By Alan on 10-15-13
By: Dean King
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Empire of Shadows
- The Epic Story of Yellowstone
- By: George Black
- Narrated by: Jack de Golia
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible, and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the 19th century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history.
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Paints a big picture
- By Gail Thomalla on 07-13-21
By: George Black
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The Last Campaign
- Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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William Tecumseh Sherman and Geronimo were keen strategists and bold soldiers, ruthless with their enemies. Over the course of the 1870s and 1880s these two war chiefs would confront each other in the final battle for what the American West would be: a sparsely settled, wild home where Indian tribes could thrive, or a densely populated extension of the America to the east of the Mississippi.
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Outstanding Unbiased Native American History
- By Paul W. Brazis on 11-07-22
By: H. W. Brands
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The Summer of 1876
- Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West
- By: Chris Wimmer
- Narrated by: Chris Wimmer, Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West. Many individuals who are considered legends by modern listeners were involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous—or infamous—moments of their lives. Those individuals were Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James. The Summer of 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends.
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Like History? You will thoroughly enjoy this book!
- By JRC on 04-26-24
By: Chris Wimmer
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The State of Jones
- The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy
- By: John Stauffer, Sally Jenkins
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War, the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man's war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War.
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Confederate Insurrection-Rebellion against Rebels
- By W Perry Hall on 02-02-14
By: John Stauffer, and others
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Dreams of El Dorado
- A History of the American West
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame - and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.
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Dreadful narration
- By Fredmo on 12-09-19
By: H. W. Brands
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Between 1886 and 1888, Sgt. James Brooks of Texas Ranger Company F was engaged in three fatal gunfights, endured disfiguring bullet wounds, engaged in countless manhunts, was convicted for second-degree murder, and rattled Washington, DC, with a request for a pardon from the US president. His story anchors the tale of Joe Pappalardo’s Red Sky Morning, an epic saga of lawmen and criminals set in Texas during the waning years of the “Old West.”
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A good story
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The Texas Rangers
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The official nonfiction companion to the History Channel dramatic series Texas Rising (produced by the same team that made the record-breaking Hatfields and McCoys): a thrilling new narrative history of the Texas Revolution and the rise of the legendary Texas Rangers who patrolled the violent western frontier.
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The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world.
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Indian Depredations in Texas
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Written in 1888, incredible first hand accounts
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Ride the Devil's Herd
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Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling, and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.
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Tough Listen.
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Mike Cox, journalist and Texas Ranger grand master, recounts enthralling tales of men who proudly wore the silver Lone Star - once hand-carved from the Mexican five peso. Whether facing Indians, banditos, or Yankees, TexasRangers earned a reputation for being some of the most formidable lawmen in U.S. history.
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Like reading case reports
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Dodge City
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Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long Dodge City's streets were lined with saloons and brothels, and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West.
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The Real Life Story of Dodge City
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It is the early 19th century, and the land recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson stretches west for thousands of miles. Who inhabits this vast new garden of Eden? What strange beasts and natural formations can be found? Thus was the birth of Manifest Destiny and the resulting bloody battles with Indigenous tribes encountered by white explorers. Also in this volatile mix are the grizzled fur trappers and mountain men, waging war against the Native American tribes whose lands they traverse.
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Jedidiah Smith
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Lone Star Nation
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Texas: From Spanish colony to statehood
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The Gates of the Alamo
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Edmund McGowan is a gifted naturalist whose life’s work is threatened by war. Mary Mott is a widowed innkeeper forced to rely on her own resources for survival. Mary’s 16-year-old son, Terrell, is a young man about to experience his first taste of love. Sprinkling in real-life figures such as James Bowie and Davy Crockett - Harrigan gives a human face to a true American legend. Told from the perspective of the Mexican attackers as well as the American defenders, this New York Times best seller recreates a time and a place where honor and gallant death shaped generations of people.
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Revisionist Bias by the Author
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History of Texas
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Texas is one of the most recognizable states in the United States of America (it is the second-largest, behind Alaska), and it also has a reputation for being unlike any other. This reputation is well-deserved, in part because of the state’s long and often contentious history. From the heyday of the Wild West and the state’s oil boom to the storied Texas Rangers and the construction of one of NASA’s primary facilities, it seems nearly impossible to fully explore everything in the state’s rich past.
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Superb History of TEXAS !!!!!
- By Allan Clark on 06-20-20
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The Texas Rangers
- The History and Legacy of the West's Most Famous Law Enforcement Agency
- By: Charles River Editors
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- Unabridged
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The creation of the Texas Rangers, as a response to Indian retaliations and renegade assaults on the banking and transportation systems, was born of a need to react quickly. Special skills were required, and unlike the military, resourcefulness and improvisatory thinking were prized, alongside obedience to orders. Author Mike Cox described the ideal Texas Ranger as one who is "able to handle any situation without definite instruction from his commanding officer."
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A bit of cleaning up of history
- By Kris Hutchison on 06-28-21
What listeners say about Cult of Glory
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Alex Zilkha
- 10-02-20
A Historical Hit Piece
While this book offers a good counterbalance to the myth of the Rangers as so-called "white knights", it is a poor history and should be taken with a large grain of salt. Swanson privileges the veracity of some accounts over others with no explanation and fails to uphold the duty of a historian to remain a fair and removed arbiter of truth, basing each statement on available evidence and not inserting his own opinions as fact.
All this being said, I would not reccomend Cult of Glory.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Len Granick
- 06-12-20
Texas Rangers
A wonderful amalgam of myth, legend, optimism and disappointment
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
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6 people found this helpful
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- Versel Rush
- 07-03-20
Okay, not great
Not what I was expecting,
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.
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6 people found this helpful
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- CopperTech
- 12-27-20
A more even-handed review of Ranger history
This work includes some of the less heroic actions in the history of the Rangers than Webb's book. It makes the organization more "human" if no less legendary.
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.
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- steven oates
- 06-09-20
Outstanding and Excellent
I knew I was going to like this book, when I heard the interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-04-21
A bit one-sided.
While I don’t doubt that the events recounted in this book actually occurred, the overall tone of the book is generally negative. History is made up of millions of stories contextualized by millions of others under circumstances dramatically different from our own. Three stars for the detailed research.
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- Brian Wilkins
- 03-16-23
Not as bad as some say.
After reading reviews, I decided to give this a listen to see if it was actually as biased as it was depicted. The author did relate atrocities committed by all, not just rangers; but most all of these are related in a variety of books covering the period. The book probably is a little slanted against the Rangers, but when "Cult" is in title, what do you expect. There is a lot of history in the book; but like with any history, it could possibly be tainted by the author's prejudice. I would recommend this work as a study of rangers and period history; but not certainly as a sole source. As to the narration, it takes a little to adapt to. And as with many, there are mispronunciations, etc.
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- A. Lewis II
- 07-01-21
This book should be sold in the Texas ranger HOF store
But it will never be. Why? Because it totally de-mythologized the high image of the Texas rangers, using first person documentation, and not just news headlines, which is the main source of the Texas Ranger mythology. I totally enjoyed this book. The stories behind the myth are much better and more human than the lies and mythologies created in order to increase the Ranger prestige. It is sordid, racist, corrupt…. But its history is proof that time can transform myth into reality…. Even if it takes over 150 years (1969 1st Latino Ranger…1988 1st black Ranger…1993 1st female Ranger)…
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- mike
- 05-19-22
Rangers-Lawmen?
Seems like the rangers were an unsavory lot.
Surely there is another side to this
story!
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- Anonymous User
- 02-18-22
Fantastic!
Narrator was great and kept me hooked, the story was never boring, definitely recommended.
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