The University of Texas Press announces a major new initiative unprecedented in publishing—The Texas Bookshelf. This project will be the most ambitious and comprehensive publishing endeavor about the culture and history of one state ever undertaken. The Texas Bookshelf will comprise sixteen books and a companion website launching in 2017, all to be written by the distinguished faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. The first book will be a new full-length history of Texas, followed by fifteen books released over five years on a range of Texas subjects—politics, music, film, business, architecture, and sports, among many others. (Authors and subjects listed below)
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The Texas Bookshelf authors.
Photo by Michael O’Brien (Hard Ground, 2011)
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John Steinbeck wrote in his 1962 book Travels with Charley: In Search of America, “I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.” Texas has long been a source of international fascination for writers, thinkers, musicians, artists, and innovators alike. This vast and varied state occupies a unique and sometimes controversial place in conversations about our nation’s cultural, economic, and political history, yet at the same time embodies something essential about the American experience. Today’s Texas, like America itself, is vital and diverse, a place whose rich heritage and Wild West romanticism are constantly being recombined with its modern entrepreneurial spirit, reflected in its personalities and national politicians—including three U.S. presidents—and the global boom industries of film, music, high tech, energy, and the growing sustainability movement.
Drawing on the state’s brightest writers, scholars, and intellectuals, the engagingly written narratives of the Texas Bookshelf will reveal the many fascinating stories that have played out in Texas from pre-Columbian times to the twenty-first century.
Director of Princeton University Press Peter Dougherty calls the project “inspired” and says, “The Bookshelf is ambitious in aim, authoritative in authorship, and panoramic in scope. I think it brilliantly merges the resources of the University of Texas with a vision as big as Texas itself. The Bookshelf sets a new standard and establishes a new genre for university presses and publishers everywhere.”
