Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers

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“Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” —The New York Times Book ReviewA twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption
The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In
Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.
Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force.
Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood.
Cult of Glory sets the record straight.
Beginning with the Texas Indian wars,
Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made.
Review
Praise for Cult of Glory:
“Scorches the reputations of such legendary Rangers as Ben McCulloch and William `Bigfoot’ Wallace for massacring Native Americans and Mexican-Americans willy-nilly . . . Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Swanson punctures the myth of the Texas Rangers as `quiet, deliberate, gentle’ men, describing them instead as `the violent instruments of repression’ . . .
Cult of Glory will thus surely discomfit some of those who pick it up, even as it confirms for others their sense that the Rangers frequently served as anything but impartial arbiters of justice.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“[
Cult of Glory] rigorously chronicles two centuries of Ranger misadventures and atrocities, as well as commendable operations undertaken by the Rangers in recent decades . . . [and] strives to be as panoramic as possible, telling a big story on a big canvas . . . it also strives to supplant the Ranger narratives of yore by synthesizing decades of others’ research as well as Swanson’s own findings.”
—John Phillip Santos, Texas Monthly
“Magisterial . . . lays bare [the Rangers’] long record of savagery, lawlessness, and racism.” —
The Chicago Tribune
“For any student of Texas history, [
Cult of Glory] is a treasure, on several levels . . . A fascinating historical narrative, packed with colorful episodes and outsize characters . . . In setting the record straight about the Texas Rangers, Swanson clarifies and enriches the remarkable story of Texas for everyone.”
—Houston Chronicle
“A harrowing deep dive into the Rangers’ darkest moments . . . What Swanson found in his thousands of documents is that the history of the Rangers is hardly a pretty picture when it comes to documenting their treatment of people of color.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“In an e