Arts & Entertainment
December 23, 2015
Los Miserables
Three academics plumb the rags-to-rags stories that have long been excluded from our state mythology.
Arts & Entertainment
August 13, 2015
All the Way With LBJ
As five new books make clear, our thirty-sixth president refuses to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Texas History
May 13, 2015
Ich Bin ein Texan
A 181-year-old book reminds us that Texas was once much more German—and far more radical—than we realize.
Books
February 12, 2015
The White Stuff
The secret history of cotton, the crop that transformed the global economy—and kept Texans in poverty for generations.
Books
October 13, 2014
Small in the Saddle
Larry McMurtry, Bill Wittliff, and Jeff Guinn turn to familiar turf—the Old West—to challenge old-school readers.
Books
August 5, 2014
Dallas Flambé
With its tight prose, waitress heroine, and stinging insight into urban life, Merritt Tierce’s debut marks an exciting turn in Texas literature.
Books
June 5, 2014
Race and Relations
Journalist Chris Tomlinson delves into the parallel histories of two Texas families with the same last name—one black, one white.
News & Politics
April 21, 2014
The Rough Guide to Frackistan
Energy reporter Russell Gold gives us a reason to give a frak about fracking.
Books
April 8, 2014
The Rough Guide to Frackistan
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, should rank alongside the smartphone as this young century’s most transformative technology. Over the past decade, so much oil and gas has been unlocked from previously impervious rock that America’s generation-long energy crisis has all but ended. Instead of a crippling strategic vulnerability—dependence on foreign
Books
February 11, 2014
Coming to Our Census
Former state demographer Steve H. Murdock is back, with a book that should be required reading for all 26,060,796 of us.
News & Politics
November 19, 2013
Bipolar Order
Contrary to what the national media would have you believe, Texas is not politically monochromatic. It is, and always has been, a state with two minds.
Politics & Policy
October 21, 2013
Spun City
For half a century the world has regarded the Dallas of 1963 as a city of hate. But as JFK knew when he got there, that wasn’t the whole story.
Reporter
June 10, 2013
The Re-Searchers
Why, in books and movies (not to mention politics), we keep returning to the epic frontier struggle between the Comanche and the Texas Rangers.
Politics & Policy
April 10, 2013
Paranoia Is the New Stupid
Acting like a rube used to be the best way to get ahead in politics. Now something crazier is required.
News & Politics
February 12, 2013
Sons of Sam
Leadership is lacking in Texas. O Houston, where art thou?
Art
January 24, 2013
Change of Art
Just over forty years ago, Texas was the kind of place dismissed as hopelessly provincial and culturally mediocre. But then came the Kimbell Art Museum.
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
Medicine Brawl
Sure, Rick Perry doesn't want to expand Medicaid. But can he afford not to?
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
The Poll Truth
When a third of its citizens vote, can Texas really be called a democracy?
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
The Texas Supermodel
America is chasing the myth of Texas. Fortunately, we aren’t.
Style & Design
January 21, 2013
Arch of Triumph
Dallas’s almost-finished Calatrava bridge may be an emblem of the city’s status. But the smart urban plan for the small neighborhood it leads to says more about the city’s future.
Art
January 20, 2013
Paint by Numbers
How Jerry Jones made Cowboys Stadium into one of the state’s best art galleries. Seriously!
Texas History
October 31, 2012
Reign of Thought
Contrary to our self-mythology, ideas—and the people who wrote them down—have always been central to Texas history.
Style & Design
March 1, 2009
The 10 Best Buildings in Texas
A tour of our greatest architectural master-pieces—from the Alamo to the World Birding Center—shows how the collision of the Old World and the New forged a unique style on the Texas frontier.
Michael Ennis
January 1, 2009
The New New Deal
What University of Texas historian H. W. Brands’s new biography of Franklin Roosevelt tells us about the Obama administration.
Politics & Policy
September 30, 2008
The Drill Team
Is the answer to our energy crisis really offshore?
Politics & Policy
May 31, 2008
End of The Road
During all but two of the past twenty years, someone named Bush had led our nation or led our state. Now we’re moving on.
Politics & Policy
March 1, 2008
Bear Market
The historic showdown between Texas and California has been a cold war, a simmering ideological feud between two great powers. And the winner (for now) is . . .
Michael Ennis
October 31, 2007
Modern Problems
What Dallas has in common with Beijing—and why their shared vision of the twenty-first-century world must carry the day.
Michael Ennis
July 31, 2007
Centered
Where the great silent majority is taking politics, here and elsewhere.
Feature
March 31, 2007
He Was A Camera
Russell Lee’s rarely seen Texas photographs reveal an artist at the peak of his powers of observation.
Michael Ennis
March 31, 2007
How We Blew It
Remember all that talk of tipping the balance of history on a fulcrum of those “Texas values” everyone was crowing about?
Michael Ennis
January 1, 2007
The Mighty Metroplex
Just a few years after nearly being written off the map, the region has become a roaring engine of growth and social transformation.
Politics & Policy
September 30, 2006
All Shook Up
Independent candidates for governor won’t win this year, but they’ve certainly upended the established order. Democrats and Republicans, you have only yourselves to blame.
Michael Ennis
July 31, 2006
My Father’s War
What I learned about Iraq from World War II—and what all the president’s men could learn.
Michael Ennis
June 30, 2006
T.R. Fehrenbach Is History
He’s still the gold standard by which all chroniclers of our shared experience are judged, but it’s time to look to the new generation. How do his wannabe heirs stack up?
Politics & Policy
April 1, 2006
North Toward Home
As surprising as our immigrant-friendliness may be to many, it speaks to who we are. To be a Texan is to inhabit a vast bicultural frontera, one that extends far beyond the Rio Grande.
Business
January 1, 2006
The Bidness Myth
Rethinking the way we do business—and government—down here.
Health
September 30, 2005
Culture of Strife
Frozen embryos are destroyed every day in the name of in vitro fertilization. Tell me again what’s so wrong with stem cell research?
Michael Ennis
June 30, 2005
What’s the Matter With Dallas?
For starters, even though its self- image is big and brash, it’s the most politically wimpy city in Texas.
Politics & Policy
April 1, 2005
Dissing Darwin
Why Texas could lose the biotech revolution—and end up, once again, an economic also-ran.
The Culture
January 1, 2005
No Hat, No Cattle
We Texans have long considered ourselves, in mythical terms, old cowhands. But we’re waking up to discover that we’re really city slickers.
Politics & Policy
September 30, 2004
The Cowboy Myth
The idea that U.S. policy bears an indelible made-in- Texas stamp is a rare point of bipartisan consensus. But there's nothing inherently Texan about the president's leadership style.
Michael Ennis
June 30, 2004
Apocalypse Now
What sets Dallas apart from other sophisticated American cities? Its unique end-of-the-world industry.
Art
December 1, 2003
The Accidental City
A new anthology of articles about Houston from the journal of the Rice Design Alliance is a sweeping historical overview, a civic memoir, and a municipal self-help guide.
Art
August 31, 2003
Everybody Loves Ray
As in Nasher, and everybody should. His $70 million sculpture center is the most eagerly anticipated arts opening in Dallas' history.
Art
May 31, 2003
Prints of a Fellow
The addition of Leo Steinberg's magnificent collection makes it official: UT-Austin's Blanton is one of the best university art museums in the country.
Art
April 1, 2003
The Minimalist
The real revelation of Donald Judd's early work is how far ahead of its time it looksnot simply its own time, but our time as well.
Art
December 1, 2002
A Fine Modness
Modernism may yet be proved dead, but if so, it has left an exquisite corpse in Fort Worth's stunning new Modern Art Museum.
Art
August 31, 2002
Peter’s Principles
Some people look at Houston and see only rough edges. Peter Marzio, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, sees a brash upstart that should be proud of its cultural riches.