Beginning in 1835 and lasting just six months, the Texas Revolution has long been cast as an epic episode in the origins of the American West. As the story goes, larger-than-life figures like Sam Houston, David Crockett, and William Barret Travis fought to free Texas from repressive Mexican rule. Going beyond this potent creation myth, Sam Haynes shows how the lives of ordinary people were upended by extraordinary events over a period of 25 years. After the battle of San Jacinto, Haynes notes here, the Lone Star republic began to swiftly expel Indians, marginalize Mexicans, and tighten its grip on the enslaved. "Haynes does a remarkable job conveying the conflicting visions of the numerous groups who fought over a land that elicited the best and worst in all of them. And he does it with an artful touch, drawing narrative order out of the historical chaos."—H.W. Brands