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God Save Texas
God Save Texas
Oct 6, 2024 8:28 AM

Author:Lawrence Wright

God Save Texas

'This is a funny, pointed love letter to Texas, at once elegiac and clear-eyed' Ben Macintyre, The Times

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America.

Texas is a Republican state in the heart of Trumpland that hasn't elected a Democrat to a statewide office in more than twenty years; but it is also a state in which minorities already form a majority (including the largest number of Muslim adherents in the United States). The cities are Democrat and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king but Texas now leads California in technology exports and has an economy only somewhat smaller than Australia's.

Lawrence Wright has written an enchanting book about what is often seen as an unenchanting place. Having spent most of his life there, while remaining deeply aware of its oddities, Wright is as charmed by Texan foibles and landscapes as he is appalled by its politics and brutality. With its economic model of low taxes and minimal regulation producing both extraordinary growth and striking income disparities, Texas, Wright shows, looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create.

This profound portrait of the state, completed just as Texas battled to rebuild after the devastating storms of summer 2017, not only reflects the United States back as it is, but as it was and as it might be. As much the home of Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson as of J.R., Ross Perot and the Bush family, as filled with magical scenery as with desolate oil-fields and strip-malls, Texas is a bellwether, super-sized mass of contradictions: a life-long study.

Reviews

Kuznick and Stone's Untold History is the most important historical narrative of this century

—— Martin J. Sherwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of , American Prometheus

It's compulsive reading: brilliant, a masterpiece

—— Daniel Ellsberg, author of , Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Finally, a book with the guts to challenge the accepted narrative of recent American history

—— Bill Maher

There is much here to reflect upon... indispensable

—— Mikhail Gorbachev

Certainly provides some illuminating historical perspectives . . . definitely worth a read

—— Morning Star

A bombshell - or else the most brilliant battle flare ever launched by a book . . . not only an engrossing story but also an important work of sociological history

—— Tom Wolfe

James Webb writes like Scots-Irish warriors take to the battlefield - with power and purpose, with courage and clarity. Born Fighting delights and inspires . . . he has written an extraordinary book

—— Randall Wallace, writer of Braveheart

Popular history at its finest

—— Booklist

‘An excellent book throwing light on a fascinating period in history... An enjoyable read… Impeccably well-researched.’

—— Paul Newham , Bookbag

Some might question whether Ferguson really needs 1000 pages to tell half of Kissinger's life. Other will revel in the wealth of detail on this most controversial of American statesman

—— Bee Wilson , Sunday Times

a formidably detailed, closely argued study of the making of one of the giants of 20th-century foreign policy

—— Gideon Rachman , FT

Mark Binelli has succeeded in synthesizing the tragedy and absurdity that Detroiters face each and every day in America’s fastest shrinking city. Yes, things are dire in Motor City, but Binelli refuses to perform an autopsy on a place that still radiates rage, pride, hustle, and hope. Detroit, he discovers, is very much alive

—— Heidi Ewing, director of Detropia

Before turning the buffalo (or the artists) loose on the haunted prairie that was once Detroit, we should ponder why a great American metropolis was allowed to die. Mark Binelli, Motor City native returned, provides a picaresque but unflinchingly honest look at the crime scene. Like Richard Pryor, he has the rare talent to make you laugh and cry at the same time

—— Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear

[The Last Days of Detroit] is a brilliant kaleidoscope of everything that is great, broken, inspiring, heart-breaking, and ultimately remarkable about Detroit. Mark Binelli has turned the story of the city, and by extension America, into a glorious, unforgettable work of art

—— Dinaw Mengestu, author of How to Read the Air

At once hilarious and sharp, sweeping and intimate, [The Last Days of Detroit] is an oddly delighted warning from the recent future. With the tender scrutiny of a returning exile, Mark Binelli has written a non-fiction novel about our American experiment, and it’s the most entertaining and persuasive book about this country I’ve read in a very long time

—— Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction

Mark Binelli is a first-rate reporter, gifted with the ability to get almost anybody to open up. [The Last Days of Detroit] is searching, wide-angle, honest, deeply moving, and unshakably dark. It is a vivid slice of our time and implies a disquieting prophecy of the future

—— Luc Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

An encounter with a longstanding black resident reveals underlying tensions “Detroit isn't some kind of abstract art project." Binelli's achievement is to make that vividly apparent

—— Andy Beckett , Guardian

Mark Binelli’s The Last Days of Detroit is a magnificent anthem to one of America’s most significant cities. He takes you on a tour into the dark heart of this once vibrant city, the home of the Ford car. This is a beautiful prose poem to a fascinating city and to post-industrial America

—— Patrick Neale , The Bookseller

Succeeds in bringing out angles on Detroit that at least this casual observer hadn’t heard before

—— Rose Jacobs , FT

Both a history and a thoughtful travelogue… British readers might wonder what Detroit has to do with them, but the collapse of manufacturing, its yawning unemployed, the tension generated by a usually white liberal class who seize on gentrification possibilities (and the desire to turn dereliction into abstract art) are universal modern concerns

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Mark Binelli’s surprisingly joyful book

—— Ed Caesar , Sunday Times

A remarkable trawl through the sorry and tragic recent history of a city that was once heralded as the future of the United States

—— Doug Johnstone , Big Issue

Binellis shows us that a brighter economic future may be possible even in the most benighted of cities

—— Rohan Silva , Prospect

The value of this book lies not just in its compelling story, but in its lessons for all the West

—— Robert Chesshyre , Literary Review

Now the city and above all its people have been brilliantly captured

—— David Goldblatt , Independent

[A] wry, inquisitive survey of Detroit's troubled past and present... Surprisingly joyful

—— Sunday Times

This journalistic account tells an enthralling, balanced story

—— Daily Telegraph
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