• Review EssayViolence and Texas History in 2020
• Carlos Kevin Blanton (bio)

I spent a part of the long, hot, isolated summer of 2020 reading about violence in Texas history: heart-pounding chases on horseback across dusty plains, frenzied moments of destruction followed by acrid gun smoke, the rising swell of an angry mob bent on administering its own justice regardless of the law, and the memory of violence that lives on to strike terror and pain for generations. The summer of 2020's mass protests against racial violence and police brutality, the deployment of unmarked federal agents to American cities, and the caging of immigrant children ripped away from their parents based on little more than their origins and darker skin all added a timely urgency for my reading. That this angry summer occurred in the context of the worst global pandemic in a century, which at the writing of this essay has resulted in more than 200,000 American dead, contributed to an even greater sense of alarm. These musings on violence in Texas history have been spurred by a new, big history of the Texas Rangers, Doug J. Swanson's, Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers.

Cult of Glory is a compelling, thorough history of that most definably Texan of institutions. Given the political atmosphere of the present, it also [End Page 338] has impeccable timing. Swanson rightfully begins by stating the obvious, "No law enforcement agency has been celebrated so much for so long in popular culture" (2), before getting to his de-mythologizing intent (4–5):

They were violent instruments of repression. They burned peasant villages and slaughtered innocents. They committed war crimes. Their murders of Mexicans and Mexican Americans made them as feared on the border as the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South. They hunted runaway slaves for bounty. They violated international law with impunity. They sometimes moved through Texas towns like a rampaging gang of thugs. They conspired to quash the civil rights of black citizens. They busted unions and broke strikes. They enforced racial segregation of public schools. They botched important criminal investigations. They served the interests of the moneyed and powerful while oppressing the poor and disfranchised. They have been the army of Texas's ruling class. And they have consistently lied about it.

In a larger sense Swanson's history of the Rangers is also a history of violence in Texas, a topic that historians of recent decades have analyzed in ways that move past traditional narratives. Those traditional narratives uncritically portrayed Anglo lawmen and settlers as rough-hewn heroes while depicting Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans who suffered at their hands as victims of evil times rather than evil men. The three other books that offer context for Cult of Glory here, Gary Clayton Anderson's The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820–1875 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), William D. Carrigan's The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836–1916 (University of Illinois Press, 2004), and Monica Muñoz Martinez's The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas (Harvard University Press, 2018), take Swanson's revisionist narrative into deeper questions. What is the role of violence in the origins of Texas? What is the motivation for violence? What happens when past violence is tolerated and romanticized? And finally, what is our duty to the past in remembering violence? But before pursuing these questions, a brief...

• 回顾2020年的论文暴力和德克萨斯历史
• 卡洛斯·凯文·布兰顿（生物）

我度过了一个漫长而炎热，与世隔绝的2020年夏季，读了一篇有关德克萨斯州历史上的暴力的故事：在尘土飞扬的平原上骑马追赶令人心痛的狂乱，疯狂的破坏时刻紧接着是刺耳的枪烟，愤怒的暴民不断涌起。不论法律如何，都可以行使自己的司法权，以及对世代相传的恐怖和痛苦持续不断的暴力记忆。2020年夏天，针对种族暴力和警察暴行的大规模抗议，未加标记的联邦特工在美国城市的部署，以及笼罩移民儿童的笼罩，这些移民仅仅是出于他们的血统和皮肤黝黑而已，这一切都适时地增加了他们的紧迫感。我的阅读。那个愤怒的夏天发生在一个世纪以来最严重的全球大流行的背景下，在撰写本文时，这已导致200,000多名美国人死亡，这给人们带来了更大的警觉。得克萨斯别动队（Doug J. Swanson's，荣耀的崇拜：德州游骑兵的大胆和残酷的历史。

《荣耀的崇拜》是最权威的德克萨斯州机构的引人入胜的详尽历史。鉴于当前的政治气氛，[End Page 338]的时机也无可挑剔。斯旺森（Swanson）正确地指出了明显的事实：“在如此长的流行文化中，没有任何一个执法机构这么久以来就这么庆祝过”（2），然后才去了解他的神秘化意图（4–5）：

它们是镇压的暴力手段。他们烧毁了乡村，屠杀了无辜者。他们犯了战争罪。他们对墨西哥人和墨西哥裔美国人的谋杀使他们像在深南部的Ku Klux Klan一样在边境上受到恐惧。他们追捕逃亡的奴隶以求赏金。他们不受惩罚地违反了国际法。他们有时像一群暴徒一样穿过得克萨斯州的城镇。他们密谋压制黑人公民的公民权利。他们破坏了工会，打破了罢工。他们强行对公立学校进行种族隔离。他们破坏了重要的刑事调查。他们压迫穷人和被剥夺权利的人而为有钱人和强国的利益服务。他们一直是德克萨斯统治阶级的军队。他们一直对此撒谎。

从广义上讲，斯旺森的《流浪者》历史也是德克萨斯州的暴力历史，最近几十年的历史学家对这一话题进行了分析，超越了传统叙事。这些传统叙事不​​加批判地将盎格鲁议员和定居者描绘成粗暴的英雄，同时描绘了遭受邪恶时代而不是邪恶男人之苦的美国原住民，墨西哥裔美国人和非裔美国人。另外三本书为荣耀的崇拜提供了背景，加里·克莱顿·安德森（Gary Clayton Anderson）的《德克萨斯的征服：应许之地的种族清洗》，1820-1875年（俄克拉荷马大学出版社，2005年），威廉·D·卡里根（William D. Carrigan）的《 Lyn教文化的形成》。 ：德克萨斯州中部的暴力与警惕，1836–1916年（伊利诺伊大学出版社，2004年），以及莫妮卡·穆尼兹·马丁内斯（MonicaMuñozMartinez）的《不公正永远不会离开你：德克萨斯州的反墨西哥暴力》（哈佛大学出版社，2018年），将斯旺森的修正主义叙述带入了更深层次的问题。暴力在德克萨斯州的起源中起什么作用？暴力的动机是什么？当过去的暴力被容忍和浪漫化时会发生什么？最后，在记住暴力方面，我们对过去的责任是什么？但是在追问这些问题之前，先简要介绍一下...