SocraticGadfly: Yes, another new Alamo book ... but you can skip it

August 05, 2012

Yes, another new Alamo book ... but you can skip it

James Donovan is the latest to come out with an Alamo book, but, I've saved you the trouble of reading it yourself. From my Goodreads review:

The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a NationThe Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation by James Donovan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well, this isn't as bad as Donovan's Custer book. (Which I feared it would be, when I saw the author, and the similarly poor in style paragraph-length subtitle. [In "A Terrible Glory" Donovan goes back to old time Custer-defending on the amount of discretion he allegedly had in his orders, blaming Reno for many of his problems, etc., while failing to take full account of the latest findings in battlefield ballistic analysis to show that Custer's troopers were shellshocked as soon as they realized he'd led them into hell on earth.])

No, this book isn't that bad. But, there's not really anything new here. Crockett, Bowie and Travis aren't 2-dimensional, but they're not more than 2.5 dimensions, either. The narrative is decent, but nothing spectacular. I didn't know every detail of 1835 revolutionary actions before reading this book, but could have read them elsewhere. I had read the latest findings about Moses Rose before reading this book, so that wasn't new, either.

Anyway, be advised.



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