Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire
* Full of myth and misunderstanding, there's a Texas for everyone... Graham writes about Texas recognizing the wide-open country that we love, while at the same time putting longitude and latitude in proper perspective... ""Kings of Texas"" is a pleasure to read. (Austin American Statesman) ""is the right man for the task of chronicling this Jonesian expanse of archetypal Texana...a pleasure to read"". (Austin American-Statesman, January 19, 2003)My mother grew up in Texas in the 1930s and recalls driving with her father for hours past seemingly endless miles of King Ranch Property. Covering 850,000 acres even today, a spread as big as the state of Rhode Island, the King Ranch has been an icon of Texas ranching culture since the 19th century. For six generations, descendants of founder Richard King ran the ranch and its various enterprises until Stephen Kleberg was voted out as ranch manager by the corporate board in 1998. The changing face of the King Ranch from family-run enterprise to corporate entity captures attention precisely because so many ranches and farms have already gone this rou te in the West, and here is the largest of them all following in their footsteps. Graham (literature, Univ. of Texas, Austin) has written several books on Texas life and culture. His latest is an easy-to-read popular narrative that complements another recent title of the King Ranch, John Cypher'sBob Kleberg and the King Ranch: A worldwide Sea of Grass& lt;/I> (1995) which is a amore scholarly look at this modern corporate empire. Highly recommended for Southwestern libraries, both public and academic. Charlie Cowling, SUNY at Brockport Lib. (Library Journal, March 1, 2003)""A crisp history of the King Ranch... a good read about an era long gone.""--Boston Globe