David Crockett In Congress The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend			«Back
	James R. Boylston and Allen J. Wiener Hard Cover 8.25" x 10", 340 pages 16 4-color photos History / Texas / Politics/Criminal Justice / Biography/Memoir / Non-Fiction 978-1-933979-51-9 October 2009 $29.95 Quantity: Gift Tie: YesNo
"James R. Boylston and Allen Wiener have done a masterful job of recovering the real David Crockett, a figure of enormous historical significance in the tumultuous and critical Jacksonian age."—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House “Davis Crockett in Congress is a book that anyone interested in Crockett would want to read. More, it is a book that any political junkie and anyone interested in American history during the Age of Jackson would find valuable." —Mark Lardas, Galveston Daily News
We’ve all heard of Davy Crockett, the King of the Wild Frontier, but serious historians have long known that the man behind the myth was more substantive and more complex. David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend is the first book to explain why even the history books have not provided a full and accurate portrait of this American legend. Current Crockett wisdom is based on James Atkins Shackford’s David Crockett, the Man and the Legend, the landmark 1956 biography of Crockett. His interpretation of the historical Crockett has become as pervasive in the historical sector as the mythological “Davy” has to the general public. Now, two life-long Crockett aficionados present missing corre-spondence that sets the record straight. Crockett’s letters, speeches, and political circulars provide a unique, long-ignored approach to discovering the real man. Crockett was a masterful campaigner among his frontier neighbors, an amusing storyteller and speaker. His jokes and stump speeches helped him win elections, but once in office, he proved himself an astute politician and parliamentarian. His most important political objective was to secure for his poorer constituents legal title to the land they had worked and improved. He never achieved that goal, but his exhaustive efforts to do so illustrate his devotion to the people who elected him and his insistence on serving them rather than his political party or its leaders. Throughout his career he remained an advocate for the poor, whom he viewed as constantly pushed aside or ignored by wealthier, more influential interests. With here-to-fore unpublished documents, and all the political writings of Crockett, as well as a complete collection of Crockett holographs and portraits, David Crockett in Congress is an insightful and provocative addition to the library of any American historian, Texas historian, Crockett buff, or political historian. JIM BOYLSTON is a member of the Alamo Society, the Alamo Battlefield Association, and has contributed important articles to the Alamo Journal and the Crockett Chronicle. He is also the creator and moderator of the Alamo Studies online forum (www.alamostudies.com), a web based discussion group devoted to the serious study of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. A songwriter and audio engineer, he has had a life-long interest in the Alamo and David Crockett. He lives in Orlando, Florida. ALLEN J. WIENER is the author of The Beatles: The Ultimate Recording Guide and co-author of The Music of the Alamo. He has written for The Washington Post, People, American History, The Alamo Journal, Western Clippings, Goldmine and Discoveries. He lives in Potomac, Maryland.