Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth

Written by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford

Narrated by Fred Sanders

A New York Times bestseller!

“Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review

"Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal

“Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle

Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head.

Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness.

In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9780593413166

Bryan Burrough

Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of five books.

Reviews for Forget the Alamo

[kalliegrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think the only thing I knew about the Alamo before this was that I was supposed to remember it. So I learned quite a bit, both about what actually happened and what people like to say happened. pretty much the same story from every place in US history.

[tuckerresearch · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

How can you cash in on 1619 and the 1619 Project? Write the 1619 Project but for Texas history.

Yes, there is a lot of mythos in Texas History. But myth works both ways. To say 1776 is all-out perfect is not right. To say 1619 is all-out right is just as wrong. For oh so many reasons.

Ditto here with 1836.

Yes, the Texas colonists had slaves and Mexico had ended slavery. Yes, slavery was important to the folks who declared independence in 1836. But to say the Texas Revolution was ONLY about slavery or even MOSTLY about slavery is just as false and propagandistic as saying 1776 was ONLY about slavery or even MOSTLY about slavery.

Great historians undergird this work, like Lack and Torget. But, guess what, not everybody agrees with historians like these whole-hog.

The revolution of 1836 was about WAY MORE than slavery. Why would the non-slaveholding Tejanos go along? Why would Zacatecas rebel against Mexico? Why would Yucatan?

Trying to paint all Anglo whites as bad-guy Hitlers is silly. Trying to make all Mexicano browns into Saints is wrong. This book actually tries to paint Santa Anna as a goody. Despite his bloody nature and his dictatorship. The Siete Leyes? The abrogation of rights? The disposal of the Constitution of 1824? All lost by these authors. In its place is slavery slavery slavery. This is wrong.

And its wrongness colors the whole book thereafter.

The story of the Alamo, its survival, its uses today.

This might have been good, but the book basically sticks to this narrative: whites bad, Republicans bad.

There is some fishiness to the collection donated by Phil Collins. There is too much mythmaking of Davy Crockett.

But, to impute racist motive to everybody and call all Republicans dunces and Nazis is just as silly and wrong.

And the plans to remodel the Alamo are a farce. "Reclaim the battlefield." Even though the walls went through a Federal building. None of the plans now to "restore the footprint" include that historic, beautiful building. So the "restore" thing is a farce. All of downtown San Antonio was part of the battlefield. Unless you plan to raze downtown San Antonio, any remodeling of the Alamo grounds are farcical.

Biased, relies on secondary sources, pro-progressive and anti-conservative, fail to have good faith in others. These authors fail in their main premises. Some good bits of history and historiography, but all mis-colored by their biases and their agenda to stick it to anybody who might be white and/or Republican.

It's as if the liberals of the Texas Monthly (communists who like brisket) decided to opine on the Alamo. Nowhere near worth the praise it has gotten, but you need to read it nevertheless.

[bumblybee-190414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As one of thousands of seventh-grade Texas history alums in the mid-2000s, reading this book was a whirlwind of emotions for me. I was immediately taken back to the classroom with my middle school history teacher, remembering how she'd made us repeat multiple times back to her that "the Civil War was fought over states' rights, not slavery." (The nuance of states' rights to practice slavery apparently was lost on her.) As you can probably imagine, her take on the Alamo was absolutely that of the Heroic Anglo Narrative referenced in the book, with only passing mention of Tejanos as folks who just happened to help out The Trio.

I was alternately angry and frustrated while reading this book - not with the book itself, but with the actual education I missed out on that I am only coming to realize as an adult. It shouldn't be such a shock - of course the legend of Travis, Crockett, and Bowie has been embellished over time, and Texans love nothing more than a good story. I feel foolish, somewhat, for not second-guessing much of the Alamo myth, for not realizing the traumatizing impact on my fellow classmates who did not view the Anglos as the "good guys" but nonetheless has to be quiet.

As you can probably tell, this book left a lot for me to think about, and I'm still mulling a lot of it over. I'd recommend it to anyone who was subjected to Texas history class as a child, or anyone who has an interest in Texas history - that is, actual Texas history.

[etxgardener · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I never studied Texas history, so my knowledge of the Alamo came from two sources: the Walt Disney movie about Davy Crocket and The John Wayne movie about the battle of the Alamo. The first time I went to San Antonio on business in 1985 was the first time I saw the Alamo. I pestered my business colleague (who was a Texas native) to take me there and when I finally saw it was astounded that it was in the middle of downtown an across the street from a tack Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum

Since then I have come to know more about Texas history and have learned that things weren’t quite as straight forward as those 1950’s movies portrayed. But Texas loves its legends, and has not taken kindly to this book which exposes the “Heroic Anglo” interpretation of events for what it is – largely a myth

Burrough relates the real history of both the Texian’s revolution against Mexico, the battle itself, and the myth-making that followed including the present day controversy of Phil Collins’ collection of “memorabilia.”

There should be an addendum to cover the stir this book has caused in conservative circles in Texas. A scheduled appearance to discuss the book at the Bullock Texas State history Museum in Austin, that had 300 RSVP’s was cancelled three days before the event in July of this year by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick after GOP members of the State Preservation Board and other conservative groups complained, and several conservative web sites have been set up in an attempt to debunk the book.

Texans take their myths seriously. This fight is not over.

[hmlreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'll be passing along my copy of "Forget the Alamo" to a Texas public school teacher. It should be required reading for all Texas history teachers. Especially now.