The Texas State Historical Association is pleased to offer a reprint edition of Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas, Gregg Cantrell’s path-breaking biography of the founder of Anglo Texas. Cantrell’s portrait goes beyond the traditional interpretation of Austin as the man who spearheaded American Manifest Destiny. Cantrell portrays Austin as a borderlands figure who could navigate the complex cultural landscape of 1820s Texas, then a portion of Mexico. His command of the Spanish language, respect for the Mexican people, and ability to navigate the shoals of Mexican politics made him the perfect advocate for his colonists and often for all of Texas. Yet when conflicts between Anglo colonists and Mexican authorities turned violent, Austin’s accomodationist stance became outdated. Overshadowed by the military hero Sam Houston, he died at the age of forty-three, just six months after Texas independence. Decades after his death, Austin’s reputation was resurrected and he became known as the “Father of Texas.” More than just an icon, Stephen F. Austin emerges from these pages as a shrewd, complicated, and sometimes conflicted figure.

The natural beauty of Austin, Texas, has always been central to the city's identity. From the beginning, city leaders, residents, planners, and employers consistently imagined Austin as a natural place, highlighting the region's environmental attributes as they marketed the city and planned for its growth. Yet, as Austin modernized and attracted an educated and skilled labor force, the demand to preserve its natural spaces was used to justify economic and racial segregation. This effort to create and maintain a "city in a garden" perpetuated uneven social and economic power relationships throughout the twentieth century. In telling Austin's story, Andrew M. Busch invites readers to consider the wider implications of environmentally friendly urban development. While Austin's mainstream environmental record is impressive, its minority groups continue to live on the economic, social, and geographic margins of the city. By demonstrating how the city's midcentury modernization and progressive movement sustained racial oppression, restriction, and uneven development in the decades that followed, Busch reveals the darker ramifications of Austin's green growth.

In this gonzo history of the “City of the Violet Crown,” author and journalist Joe Nick Patoski chronicles the modern evolution of the quirky, bustling, funky, self-contradictory place known as Austin, Texas. Patoski describes the series of cosmic accidents that tossed together a mashup of outsiders, free spirits, thinkers, educators, writers, musicians, entrepreneurs, artists, and politicians who would foster the atmosphere, the vibe, the slightly off-kilter zeitgeist that allowed Austin to become the home of both Armadillo World Headquarters and Dell Technologies. Patoski’s raucous, rollicking romp through Austin’s recent past and hipster present connects the dots that lead from places like Scholz Garten—Texas’ oldest continuously operating business—to places like the Armadillo, where Willie Nelson and Darrell Royal brought hippies and rednecks together around music. He shows how misfits like William Sydney Porter—the embezzler who became famous under his pen name, O. Henry—served as precursors for iconoclasts like J. Frank Dobie, Bud Shrake, and Molly Ivins. He describes the journey, beginning with the search for an old girlfriend, that eventually brought Louis Black, Nick Barbaro, and Roland Swenson to the founding of the South by Southwest music, film, and technology festival. As one Austinite, who in typical fashion is simultaneously pursuing degrees in medicine and cinematography, says, “Austin is very different from the rest of Texas.” Many readers of Austin to ATX will have already realized that. Now they will know why.

Goodnight Austin is a 36 page, colorfully illustrated book for all who love Austin, Texas. Whether Austin has long held a place in your heart or you are just passing through, you'll be sure to recognize many of the special places and things that make our city such a beloved part of the Lone Star state.

Let's Make Letters! is a playful and informative workbook that encourages play, creativity, and even making misaktes along the way. The book features instructional, speculative, and approachable exercises in an effort to build reader's skills, curiosity, and confidence. Creation of handmade letters by providing readers with more than fifty exercises to create their own unique letterforms. Let's Make Letters! includes exercises that range from simple lettering basics to the expressive and experimental - with imaginative prompts and tips to go beyond the margins of the book. Fail! Make ugly letters! Have fun! Designers, artists, scribblers, teachers, and students are encouraged to take up new and familiar tools to draw, depict, and distort letters in original and inventive ways. It's up to the letterer - pen in hand - to complete the book. By enabling letterers to draw, paint, tape, cut, and glue directly into its pages, Let's Make Letters! will fill a void in hand-lettering publications.

Based on a true story, this memoir tells of a young man who threw away his life only to reclaim it while hitchhiking from Minnesota to Texas in the dead of winter in 1982.

A native Texan who lived and worked in the Austin area for more than twenty years, Joshua Long is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Franklin College Switzerland in Lugano, Switzerland. --Book Jacket.