Gone to Texas

A History of the Lone Star State

By: Randolph B. Campbell

Narrated by: Jacob Sommer

Gone to Texas engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the 21st Century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the audiobook offers an inclusive view of the vast array of Texans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas.

©2003 Randolph B. Campbell (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Great book, Good information, so so narrator

As a third generation Texan who grew up in Corpus Christi, I enjoyed this book. I learned a lot. The narrator was easy to understand, but he needed to talk with a Texas history teacher in Texas to learn how to pronounce some things Texas. When he mentioned the Karen-Kawa Indians I had no idea what he was talking about until he mentioned they were on the Gulf coast, then I realized he was talking about the Karankawa Indians. Anahuac was butchered also. Oh well, I'll get over it.

Full history, but should have been produced better

The problems will really only bother Texans.
The reader was clearly professional, but mispronounced numerous place and peoples names throughout.
Worst offender: mentioning the Kiowa Indian tribe. The reader says Key-o-wah, when it should sound like Ky-o-wah.
Jim Bowie's last name should sound like "buoy", but was read with the more common "bo-ee"
There are too many more to name.

Read Michener instead.

I adore Texas history! I've lived in Texas off and on for many years and the people and the state really speak to me. This book, however, does not. It's well researched and contains some interesting material but the writing just doesn't shine...and with this topic it needs to. James Michener's "Texas" which, albeit, is historical fiction, will really give you a much better idea of Texas and Texans. I recommend Michener over this.

Annoying mispronunciation

great book, but reader diminishes the work with his repeated mispronunciation of Spanish names and common Texas placemanes. Clearly not a Texan and clearly did not bother to try. Spanish does not have long vowels, but does with this guy. Texans will cringe every time the reader says Seguin, Bastrop or trips over a Spanish name.

Good Book... Until the end

I really enjoyed the vast majority of this book.

Once we get to the last chapter however, it begins to fall apart and the author starts to show hi true colors.

DISSAPPOINTED.

You gotta get a Texan narrator

The book was great and the narration was good except the narrator didn't properly pronounce the names of many texas names. Bexar= bayhar. Mexia= mahaya. Uvalde= youvaldee. There were others that I can't remember but those stuck out. It is such a Texan thing to have weird pronunciations but someone narrating a Texas book who presumably conferred with the author should know how these things are pronounced in the.. Texan language? I was really confused for about 3/4 of the book thinking to myself, "Now where the hell is bear county?" (His pronunciation of Bexar) Another example of Texans doing things however they damn well please I guess. Other than that I highly recommend this comprehensive and enjoyable book to everyone

Really enjoyed this book!

Too many misspronunciatios of sir names and places.

Very well written and researched. Kudos to the author!

Good history from year zero through about 1962

Would you listen to Gone to Texas again? Why?

GTT has a lot of specific election and demographic data about Texas, it is a good reference for that sort thing.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Gone to Texas?

The early history of Texas and the details about the various Texas Native American tribes.

Any additional comments?

The author is clearly a liberal Democrat. That's fine for most of the book, but it distorts his telling of the history of post WWII Texas.

To give you one example, he connects Lee Harvey Oswald with vague 'conservative groups'. He never mentions that Oswald was literally a card carrying Communist.

The narrator has an excellent reading voice, but he was let down by an incompetent producer. Sommer has no idea how to pronounce the many Tejano based personal and place names we use in Texas.

It took me a while to figure out who this 'Juan Sagwin' person was for example. I'd never heard of 'U-va-lee' Texas, which is really pronounced 'U-vall-dee'. Many names and place names are mangled this way.

It's the job of the audio book producer to catch these kinds of mistakes, not the narrator.

Left-winger

The author added his left minded comments in his slanted account of Texas history.

Good Read

Loved the book. Amazing detail. Characters I had never heard of before and will research further. I live in Texas and as a graduate of the University of Oklahoma only take issue with the State for a little over four hours on the second Saturday in October.