Film: Bitter and Sweet

But by the late 1960s, the authors tell us, the Alamo, like so many other hallowed institutions, had fallen on hard times, an early casualty of the culture wars. The men of the Alamo, once revered, suddenly became, in the words of revisionist historian Jeff Long, “ignorant trigger-pulling white trash,” while budding history scholars likened them to Nazis. Even the venerable Crockett, long regarded as a freedom fighter, public servant (a former congressman, he was once talked about as a Whig presidential candidate), backwoods philosopher, and prototypical American frontiersman, abruptly became a “phony” (Arthur Schlesinger’s word); “barely literate” (E. J. Kahn Jr., writing in The New Yorker); and “purchasable for no more than a drink” (Murray Kempton). (William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the few to rise to Crockett’s defense, exclaiming that this was in part a “traditional debunking campaign” by “liberal publicists . . . He’ll survive the carpers.”) As the 1990s rolled around, New Western historians deemed the Alamo little more than another brutal story of white-imperialist oppression and exploitation; by then, it was no surprise when Chicano Marxists insisted, in all sincerity, that the defenders of the Alamo “sucked the blood of the Chicano people.”

Roberts and Olson, who previously collaborated on John Wayne: American, do a meticulous job in bringing this momentous battle to life and in creatively exploring its impact on our culture and collective memory. One wishes, however, that they could have avoided the choice to make the format half-narrative, half-essay—an otherwise fine narrative thread is hindered as a result (and this nostalgic fan of westerns winced upon seeing John Wayne’s The Alamo described as a “long, preachy melodrama”). Still, it is both good and timely to have this book.

JS

About the Author

John Simon

Featured Tags

Manage following

Film

Movies

But by the late 1960s, the authors tell us, the Alamo, like so many other hallowed institutions, had fallen on hard times, an early casualty of the culture wars. The men of the Alamo, once revered, suddenly became, in the words of revisionist historian Jeff Long, “ignorant trigger-pulling white trash,” while budding history scholars likened them to Nazis. Even the venerable Crockett, long regarded as a freedom fighter, public servant (a former congressman, he was once talked about as a Whig presidential candidate), backwoods philosopher, and prototypical American frontiersman, abruptly became a “phony” (Arthur Schlesinger’s word); “barely literate” (E. J. Kahn Jr., writing in The New Yorker); and “purchasable for no more than a drink” (Murray Kempton). (William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the few to rise to Crockett’s defense, exclaiming that this was in part a “traditional debunking campaign” by “liberal publicists . . . He’ll survive the carpers.”) As the 1990s rolled around, New Western historians deemed the Alamo little more than another brutal story of white-imperialist oppression and exploitation; by then, it was no surprise when Chicano Marxists insisted, in all sincerity, that the defenders of the Alamo “sucked the blood of the Chicano people.”

Roberts and Olson, who previously collaborated on John Wayne: American, do a meticulous job in bringing this momentous battle to life and in creatively exploring its impact on our culture and collective memory. One wishes, however, that they could have avoided the choice to make the format half-narrative, half-essay—an otherwise fine narrative thread is hindered as a result (and this nostalgic fan of westerns winced upon seeing John Wayne’s The Alamo described as a “long, preachy melodrama”). Still, it is both good and timely to have this book.