Cult of Glory

The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers

De: Doug J. Swanson

Narrado por: Kaleo Griffith

“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 Audio

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.

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

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.

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.

Los rinches

I have a recollection of stories told by my grandfather, family lived for centuries in southwest Texas but was ran out of the state for their land and for being “Mexican”

Always Believe the Offenders

This book was frustrating to listen to in a number of ways. First, after almost two centuries of history, there are bound to be times when there were abuses for any law enforcement agency. Second, the Rangers have been tainted from time to time by major political interference and chicanery. Third, trying to judge the Rangers who served in 1850 by today's standards is bound to give a bad impression. People should be judged in their times, and by their times. Finally, a consistent problem with this book is that the author seems to be more than willing to believe any dissent from the Rangers' account of an incident to automatically be true.

No exceptions

None of us our exempt from facing the truth. It’s encouraging to know that when we face our faults as well as our talents, merits and gifts we can grow.

Unbiased Look Into The Past

There is no hiding from the atrocities that manifest destiny created, but the other does not take sides and talks about the savagery of the native Americans among themselves.

Worth the Listen

Very good presentation of a narrative passed over by popular myth. Very well spoken, clear and interesting, good pace.

I liked it but……

I appreciate the history but this book was 100% biased against the Rangers. I imagine it’s more of a rebuttal to other books that portray them as always righteous but they were just a reflection of what the world was in respect to dates and location.