LONE STAR JUSTICE: The First Century of the Texas Rangers
Robert M. Utley, . . Oxford Univ., $30 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-19-512742-3
Complicating the traditional portrait of the Texas Rangers as a unified force battling anyone who threatened the territory, republic or state of Texas, Utley's 13th book on Western history identifies two distinct Ranger populations. The first group, which thrived from 1832 to 1874, included ragtag citizen-soldiers who worked for brief stints and saw rangering as a chance to battle Indians or Mexicans "and then come back home." The second group, however, "drew from and molded a different order of men." These rangers, known after 1901 as the Ranger Force, evolved into career lawmen who practiced greater discipline, professionalism and accountability; they were more likely to encounter train robbers, labor strikes and vigilante mobs than Comanche horse thieves (Utley will cover this second era in a promised second volume). Utley (
Reviewed on: 06/03/2002
Genre: Nonfiction
Paperback - 416 pages - 978-0-425-19012-8