"A joint project of the Center for Texas Studies at TCU and TCU Press."

Texas announces it will leave the United States and form a new country. Families, friends, and professionals across the United States see old loyalties broken and new loyalties forged in the fires of personal ambition and necessity. Unknown, average young people find themselves on the tip of the spear of the upstart Texas Defense Force, formed to protect the new country. In a night that will forever change his destiny, going-nowhere sales clerk Michael Minze discovers he has a talent for killing, and bright but underachieving student Ann Militzer is offered a graduation present she can't refuse as a reward for her loyalty: the keys to a supersonic warplane. The leadership of the United States vows to stop Texas from seceding. And war ravages the nation.

Originally published: New York: Free Press, 2004.

Volume one of a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood on the banks of the Pedernales to his election as vice president under Kennedy.

"Alan Weisman has come as close as anyone to unraveling one of the big mysteries of the television age: who is the real Dan Rather? Weisman has devoted much time, energy, and talent to that question, and this book is a fascinating read." --Robert Pierpoint, former CBS News correspondent "There is no career in modern television journalism that is more fascinating, complicated, controversial, or accomplished than that of Dan Rather, and there is no one who has focused the attention of colleagues, TV writers, competitors, and, of course, critics to a similar degree over the last twenty-five years. Alan Weisman's lively account of this remarkable life explains why the quest to understand Rather has remained so vital and important." --Verne Gay, television critic, Newsday "This book is an attempt to take a few steps back from Memogate and examine the whole picture -- the scope and breadth of Dan Rather's life, career, and times. If he mattered enough to be watched by untold millions of people for fifty years on television, then his story matters enough to be told as fully as possible." --From Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather

Complete the Agenda in Higher Education: Challenge Beliefs about Student Success is a bold call to action to do more than just improve college completion rates. This book is for community college board members, administrators, faculty and staff who also want to: (1) foster beliefs that will enable students to finish what they start; (2) empower students to overcome daily challenges and real adversity; and (3) transform human potential into achievement, for a lifetime. Courageous educators, foundations, associations and researchers made community colleges better than we were a decade ago. Completion rates have improved somewhat as a result, but too many students still do not finish because the Completion Agenda is incomplete. This book describes compelling reasons why a shift from a “completion-only-mindset” to the Beliefs Agenda (completion with GRIT) is critical for the future of America. It provides practical implementation methods, offers engaging teaching tactics, and proposes sensible strategies.