Forget the Alamo with Chris Tomlinson

The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past

Join us as we talk with Chris Tomlinson about his new book, Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth, co-written with Bryan Burrough and Jason Stanford. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. In our conversation, Chris explains the true story of the battle and walks us through the creation of the Alamo myth in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. Join us for this riveting and important conversation.