Utilizing many sources new to publication, James L. Haley delivers a most readable and enjoyable narrative history of Texas, told through stories—the words and recollections of Texans who actually lived the state’s spectacular history. From Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s myth-enshrouded stand at the Alamo, to the Mexican-American War, and to Sam Houston’s heroic failed effort to keep Texas in the Union during the Civil War, the transitions in Texas history have often been as painful and tense as the “normal” periods in between. Here, in all of its epic grandeur, is the story of Texas as its own passionate nation.

This qualitative study utilized the protective action decision model to explore the risk perceptions and hazard adjustments to the earthquake risk of residents in El Reno, Oklahoma.

“There are some poets we admire for a mastery that allows them to tell a story, express an epiphany, form a conclusion, all gracefully and even memorably— yet language in some way remains external to them. But there are other poets in whom language seems to arise spontaneously, fulfilling a design in which the poet’s intention feels secondary. Books by these poets we read with a gathering sense of excitement and recognition at the linguistic web being drawn deliberately tighter around a nucleus of human experience that is both familiar and completely new, until at last it seems no phrase is misplaced and no word lacks its resonance with what has come before. Such a book is Austin Segrest’s Door to Remain.”— Karl Kirchwey, author of Poems of Rome and judge

There has been a rapid surge toward "organic" products devoid of GMOs, MSGs, and other common compounds found in processed foods that continue to indicate an association with an increased risk for disease. These consumers seek nutrients and vitamins that are lacking in their diet and lifestyle in the form of nutraceuticals for disease prevention and treatment as well as overall lifestyle enhancement. However, these products generally lack clinical evidence as well as legal definition. Due to this ambiguity, nutraceuticals are neither considered a food product nor a pharmaceutical product. Furthermore, due to their alleged natural properties allowing for safe, therapeutic effects, nutraceuticals are being eagerly sought after by consumers in the place of pharmaceuticals. Additionally, since nutraceutical substances are "naturally" derived, there is a general lack of regulation regarding the manufacturing and distribution process. This mismanagement leads to lack of quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) protocols strictly implemented to define appropriate production and storage parameters. Without these critical measures, consumers are subjected to contamination of their products resulting from improper storage conditions and unmanaged production. These contaminants often include heavy metal impurities, pesticides, bacterial activity, and may also be adulterated with illicit drugs, all leading to detrimental …

In 2016, the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized the Atrato River as a subject of rights based on the theory of biocultural rights. This dissertation analyzes a new legal concept that aims to defend the rights to a good life for humans and other-than-human co-inhabitants who share river ecosystems, focusing on the case of the Atrato River in Colombia. The 3Hs framework of biocultural ethics is adopted to interconnect complex and interrelated historical, biophysical, cultural, and political dimensions. With this analysis, broader biocultural approaches are suggested. They could be valuable for understanding and implementing biocultural rights in other world regions. Moreover, it could transform the current situation that destroys biocultural diversity toward public policies that favor more just and sustainable forms of co-inhabiting biocultural diversity. A primary limitation of the implementation of biocultural rights is the context of a "failed state," in which the Colombian State is subject to severe problems of corruption, illegal mining, conflicts between legal and illegal armed groups, and drug trafficking. There is a need for a dialogue solution to the conflict. This requires that illegal armed groups are valued as co-inhabitants. Achieving social-environmental justice is essential for biocultural ethics. In this case, it is the condition …

This study examines the relationship between proposed desalination plants and increased plastic pollution along the Texas Gulf Coast. It specifically focuses on their expected impact on communities in the area and was conducted for Society of Native Nations. The goal was to gather information about environmental ideologies and experiences from different environmental experts and scientists to educate community members and inform policy recommendations. The study relied on semi structured interviews and archival research to understand how environmental experts and scientists envision the future, how they interpret the impact of desalination plants as related to plastic pollution. Ideas that guided this research include decolonial methodologies, political ecology, Indigenous research agendas, environmental justice and knowledge, cultural hybridity, and the anthropology of the borderlands. This research provides actionable steps and recommendations to improve environmental education in Texas Gulf Coast communities on the U.S./Mexico border and to reduce plastic pollution in order to ensure that these communities have ample amounts of water supply without relying on desalination plants.

Identified with Texas is the first published biography of Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease (1812-1883), presented by historian Elizabeth Whitlow as a dual biography of Pease and his wife, Lucadia Niles Pease (1813-1905). Pease volunteered to fight in the first battle of the Revolution at Gonzales, and he served with the Texan Army at the Siege of Bexar. Pease served in the first three state legislatures after Texas joined the Union in 1845, was elected governor in 1853 and re-elected in 1855, and returned to the governorship as an interim appointee from 1867 to 1869 during Reconstruction. His achievements in all these positions were substantial. Lucadia Niles Pease was known as the Governor’s “Lady.” Moreover, her early, independent travel and her stated position as a “woman’s rights woman” in the 1850s, as well as her support for sending a daughter away to college in the 1870s to earn a degree, all serve as markers of her intelligence and the strength of her convictions. To tell their story, Whitlow mined thousands of letters and papers saved by the Pease family and housed in the Austin History Center of the Austin Public Library, as well as in the Governor’s Papers at the …

America’s Wild West created an untold number of notorious characters, and in southwestern Texas, John King Fisher (1855– 1884) was foremost among them. To friends and foes alike, he insisted he be called “King.” He found a home in the tough sun-beaten Nueces Strip, a lawless land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There he gathered a gang of rustlers around him at his ranch on Pendencia Creek. For a decade King and his gang raided both sides of the Rio Grande, shooting down any who opposed them. Newspapers claimed King killed potential witnesses—he was never convicted of cattle or horse stealing, or murder. King’s reign ended when he was arrested by Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly. In no uncertain terms he advised Fisher to change his ways, so King became deputy sheriff of Uvalde County. But his hard-won respectability would not last. On a spring night in 1884, King made the mistake of accompanying the truly notorious gambler and gunfighter Ben Thompson on a tour of San Antonio, where several years prior Thompson shot down Jack Harris at the latter’s saloon and theater, the Vaudeville. Recklessly, King Fisher accompanied Thompson back to the theater, where assassins were …