Synopses & Reviews
Review
"With his keen observations and spritely prose, Richard Parker shows he can bring a reporter's sensibility to any topic--from the famed counterculture of Austin to a sharp piece of presidential campaign analysis and even a richly woven Civil War battle story. Parker lathers his pieces with detail and immediate facts, exuding the persuasive voice of someone who knows what he's talking about." Chad Lorenz
Review
"Democrats are champing at the bit to turn Texas blue. But it's going to take more than money or a Clinton. It will require hard work, political infrastructure and a vision of Hispanic voters that goes beyond immigration reform. It has been 36 years since the democrats last captured Texas in a presidential election. It could well happen again." Slate
Review
"Richard Parker has undertaken a large and daunting task to wrangle the various components of Texas, from its brawling history to its lightning-fast social change, and produce a single vision of what Texas means to America today.
Review
"Richard Parker returned to his native Texas to discover a profoundly changed world.
Review
"A beautiful new book. The limitations of Texas's attempt to combine being somewhere and being successful are apparent in Parker's gripping story, and suggest that there is still space for new places to attempt new ways to combine place and possibility." The Daily Beast
Synopsis
To most Americans, Texas has been that love-it-or-hate it slice of the country that has sparked controversy, bred presidents, and fomented turmoil from the American Civil War to George W. Bush. But that Texas is changing and it will change America itself.
Richard Parker takes the reader on a tour across today's booming Texas, an evolving landscape that is densely urban, overwhelmingly Hispanic, exceedingly powerful in the global economy, and increasingly liberal. This Texas will have to ensure upward mobility, reinvigorate democratic rights, and confront climate change just to continue its historic economic boom. This is not the Texas of George W. Bush or Rick Perry.
Instead, this is a Texas that will remake the American experience in the twenty-first century as California did in the twentieth with surprising economic, political, and social consequences. Along the way, Parker analyzes the powerful, interviews the insightful, and tells the story of everyday people because, after all, one in ten Americans in this century will call Texas something else: Home.
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Synopsis
A provocative and eye-opening look at the most explosive and controversial state in America, where everything is bigger, bolder and shaping our nation's future in surprising ways.
Americans today are reckoning with a new Texas--that love-it-or-hate it giant slice of America that has sparked controversy, bred presidents, and fomented change from the Civil War to the election of George W. Bush and the Iraq War. In Lone Star America, Richard Parker examines this evolving landscape. But the Texas that Americans think they know is changing, and as a result it will change America itself in the twenty-first century, just as California did in the last century. Richard Parker uncovers a new Texas: a profoundly urban one, an overwhelmingly Hispanic one, an increasingly liberal one, and one succeeding in the global economy while being forced to face the looming threats of poverty and climate change--and sooner rather than later. He explores the broader implications of change in Texas that could help remake Washington and energize the American economy.Along the way, he shares the stories of the powerful and everyday people that are shaping Texas and, as a result, the country itself, as one in every five Americans will soon call Texas something else: Home.
About the Author
Richard Parker is an award-winning journalist who writes about political, economic, technological and social change. His work appears in the Op-Ed and Sunday Review sections of