The New Handbook of Texas
For more than forty years the Handbook of Texas has been the most comprehensive and authoritative source on Texas history. Now, the Texas State Historical Association is proud to announce the New Handbook of Texas—a stunning six-volume encyclopedia and biographical dictionary covering every aspect of Texas history.
Thirteen years in preparation, the new edition presents the efforts of more than 3,000 authors, editors, and reviewers. You'll find 24,000 articles covering the history of Texas from A to Z, including agriculture, architecture, art, business, education, environment, folklore, geology, health and medicine, law, politics, religion, sports, and urbanization. There are detailed histories of all 254 counties and of every major city. More than 7,500 articles describe every named town or settlement for which any significant information could be located. Thousands of other entries highlight key events, geographical features, historical sites, institutions, and organizations.
The New Handbook tells the story of the people who made Texas history—the men and women who shaped the Lone Star State. More than 7,000 biographical entries provide authoritative information about the famous and the infamous, the legendary and the overlooked. Other essays describe the many groups of people who have lived in Texas, from prehistoric cultures to twentieth-century immigrants. Particular attention has been given to the rich historical traditions of the African-American and Mexican-American communities in Texas, and to the vital historical contributions made by individual women and women's organizations throughout the state.
The New Handbook features the same concise, authoritative, and easy-to-read style that made the original Handbook a favorite for generations. The New Handbook is the one source that readers will turn to again and again for the definitive story on Texas culture, geography, and history. Short descriptive articles present essential information on thousands of individual topics. Longer interpretive essays, prepared by leading experts, describe and analyze broad subject areas and major historical periods. Bibliographic citations—more than 11,000 different references in all—suggest sources for further information. Thousands of cross-references direct readers to related articles.
Hundreds of illustrations—photographs, maps, charts, and beautiful works of art—accompany the articles. Most of the illustrations come from the historical period described, accurately capturing an event or evoking a past way of life.
No researcher, author, journalist, library, student, or lover of Texas history should be without this monumental set. Now is the time to add the New Handbook of Texas to your library.
Publication is made possible in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and the Texas Committee for the Humanities, a state program of the NEH.
"It is a remarkable accomplishment, the only one of its kind in America that I know of . . . It lifts you instantly onto a higher level of scholarship than any of the other states . . . "—James A. Michener"The broadening of the subjects covered, to reflect the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of Texas, has been a welcome improvement . . . the Handbook of Texas in this new and enlarged version will be a reference work for other states to learn from and to strive to imitate."—Lewis L. Gould, University of Texas at Austin
". . . the New Handbook will answer almost any question a Texan may raise . . . ''—Kent Biffle, Dallas Morning News
" . . . over the years we have found the Handbook of Texas to be an authoritative reference of amazing completeness. Your work to expand and update its coverage is a godsend to researchers in Texas history. I consider it hands down the most valuable state reference work extant and applaud all efforts to increase its usefulness."—John B. Boles, editor, Journal of Southern History
"Though women's history has flourished in the past two decades, there are not many resources for looking in depth at women of an individual state. [The New Handbook] will be a pace setter."—Anne Firor Scott, Duke University
The New Handbook of Texas
0-87611-151-7 cloth $395.00x9x11 1/2. 6 vols. 7,000 pp. 687 illus. 76 color plates. maps.
Texas History.Publication Date: May 1996.
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