Demonstrating how the growth of a midsized city can illuminate urban development issues across an entire region, this exemplary history of Corpus Christi explores how competing regional and cosmopolitan influences have shaped this thriving port and leisur

A favorite destination of visitors to the Texas coast, Corpus Christi is a midsize city that manages to be both cosmopolitan and provincial, networked and local. It is an indispensable provider of urban services to South Texas, as well as a port of international significance. Its industries and military bases and, increasingly, its coastal research institutes give it a range of connections throughout North America. Despite these advantages, however, Corpus Christi has never made it into the first rank of Texas cities, and a keen self-consciousness about the city’s subordinate position has driven debates over Corpus’s identity and prospects for decades. In this masterful urban history—a study that will reshape the way that Texans look at all their cities—Alan Lessoff analyzes Corpus Christi’s place within Texas, the American Southwest, the western Gulf of Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexican borderlands from the city’s founding in 1839 to the present. He portrays Corpus as a place where westward Anglo expansion overwhelmed the Hispanic settlement process from the south, leaving a legacy of conflicting historical narratives that colors the city’s character even now. Lessoff also explores how competing visions of the city’s identity and possibilities have played out in arenas ranging from artwork in public places to schemes to embellish, redevelop, or preserve the downtown waterfront and North Padre Island. With a deep understanding of the geographic, historical, economic, and political factors that have formed the city, Lessoff demonstrates that Corpus Christi exemplifies the tensions between regional and cosmopolitan influences that have shaped cities across the Southwest.

With strong personal and professional ties to the Gulf of Mexico, marine geologist John B. Anderson has spent two decades studying the Texas coastline and continental shelf. In this book, he sets out to answer fundamental questions that are frequently asked about the coast—how it evolved; how it operates; how natural processes affect it and why it is ever changing; and, finally, how human development can be managed to help preserve it. The book provides an amply illustrated look at ocean waves and currents, beach formation and erosion, barrier island evolution, hurricanes, and sea level changes. With an abundance of visual material—including aerial photos, historical maps, simple figures, and satellite images—the author presents a lively, interesting lesson in coastal geography that readers will remember and appreciate the next time they are at the beach and want to know: What happens to the sand that erodes from our beaches? Can beach erosion be stopped—and should we try? How much sand will be needed to stabilize our beaches? Does a hurricane have any positive impacts? How much development can the coast withstand? This entertaining and instructive book provides authoritative answers to these and other questions that are essential to our understanding of coastal change.

When television viewers see James Muñoz on the air, they see a man who has achieved his lifelong dream. They don't see the lonely, sexually abused child with a father-sized hole in his heart. James grew up missing the father he never knew and spent much of his early adulthood searching for his paternal family. Today he uses the name Muñoz (his mother's maiden name) on the air to honor his maternal family and Hispanic heritage and the name Doughty (his surname) in private life to honor his father and his paternal family's legacy. He shares his story to inspire and encourage others to achieve their dreams regardless of the challenges they face. His grandmother's poems and his father's letters that helped fill that empty place in his heart will touch the hearts of readers, and his advice to young people will motivate them to build their own monuments to last.

"To read this book is to spend a day on a 40-foot shrimp boat in a southern Texas bay, then return home to an isolated port town whose economy revolves around shrimping and whose future is in jeopardy. Often reading like a good novel, Maril's political economy of the Texas shrimp industry is written by someone who knows the inner workings of the industry and the communities that depend upon it. A rich and highly engaging study of the industry". -- Contemporary Sociology.

The cold, stygian dark of the extreme sea depths is home to some of our planet’s strangest creatures. Even their names evoke a science fiction adventure: dragonfishes, greeneyes, viperfishes, mirrorbellies, lanternfishes. Marine biologist Henry “Hank” Compton (1928–2005) of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Rockport Marine Lab was present on some of the earliest Gulf of Mexico cruises on which these fishes were collected for the first time in Texas waters. Upon returning, Compton would retire to the darkroom he had constructed beneath a stairwell at the lab and photograph the specimens. A talented artist, Compton then painted watercolors based on his photographs. He allowed free rein to both his scientific judgment and his artistic vision as he constructed representations of how the specimens might have appeared in the crushing pressure of their alien environment. Compton dubbed the series of deep-water paintings “Fire in the Sea” because of the shimmering bioluminescence common to these deep-water species. Then, along with taxonomic descriptions, he drafted fanciful narratives to accompany the paintings: quirky, humorous, and sometimes cryptic stories of the fishes in their unreachable habitat. Professor, researcher, and author David A. McKee has taken Compton’s work, discovered in cardboard boxes following his death, and, along with others, provided chapters on bioluminescence, life in the deep, taxonomic arrangement, and life history information.