Texas - Volumes 1 & 2 Author:James Michener Michener's combination of mammoth research, history and fiction exudes all the color, courage, villainy, violence and independent spirit expected from the Lone Star state. The book's organizing principle is a governor's task force created to study the state. It is composed of stereotypical Texans: oil man, rancher, genteel descendant of Southern... more » aristocracy, Chicano, etc. Their ancestors include an adventurer from a Spanish missionary to the Scots-Irish and Germans hungry for land and freedom to a minister sent to civilize the Comanches to Mexican bandits and Texas Rangers. Interspersed among these sagas are task force meetings in various Texas cities to study local geography and natural history - a far more accessible approach than previous Michener tomes that lump them in heavy opening chapters. Purists may object to the overabundance of dramatic incidents, but they make exciting reading.« less