
Cult of Glory
The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers
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Narrated by:
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Kaleo Griffith
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By:
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Doug J. Swanson
About this listen
“Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” (The New York Times Book Review)
A 21st-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 US 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.
©2020 Doug J. Swanson (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The Quiet Americans
- Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War - a Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Scott Anderson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Scott Anderson
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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A Tragedy for One
- By Amazon Customer on 09-23-20
By: Scott Anderson
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Wild Bill
- The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter
- By: Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, Mo., - the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger the Wild West. The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Best-selling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of Western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.
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Off-Task - Full of Filler - But Bill was Handsome!
- By Craig on 08-30-20
By: Tom Clavin
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The Apache Wars
- The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History
- By: Paul Andrew Hutton
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides - the Apaches and the white invaders - blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout Apache Kid.
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Ruined by the Narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-22-17
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Follow Me to Hell
- McNelly's Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice
- By: Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, throwing cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals into jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending 26 Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle—taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them “McNelly’s Rangers.”
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Evan's Review
- By Evan on 05-01-23
By: Tom Clavin
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The Second Most Powerful Man in the World
- The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff
- By: Phillips Payson O'Brien
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Aside from FDR, no American did more to shape World War II than Admiral William D. Leahy - not Douglas MacArthur, not Dwight Eisenhower, and not even the legendary George Marshall. No man, including Harry Hopkins, was closer to Roosevelt, nor had earned his blind faith, like Leahy. Through the course of the war, constantly at the president's side and advising him on daily decisions, Leahy became the second most powerful man in the world.
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Great bio.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-18-19
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Dead Reckoning
- The Story of How Johnny Mitchell and His Fighter Pilots Took on Admiral Yamamoto and Avenged Pearl Harbor
- By: Dick Lehr
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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“AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT DRILL.” At 7:58 a.m. on December 7, 1941, an officer at the Ford Island Command Center frantically typed what would become one of the most famous radio dispatches in history as the Japanese navy launched a surprise aerial assault on the American navy stationed in Hawaii. In a little over two hours, the Japanese killed more than 2,400 Americans and propelled the US’s entry into World War II. Dead Reckoning is the story of the mission to avenge that devastating strike.
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Half Soap Opera, target audience 20 something male
- By Donald L. Hogan on 03-20-21
By: Dick Lehr
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Fire and Fortitude
- The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943
- By: John C. McManus
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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John C. McManus, one of our most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes listeners from Pearl Harbor - a rude awakening for a military woefully unprepared for war - to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower.
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Excellent Work In Spite of A Woke Author
- By J.Brock on 07-09-20
By: John C. McManus
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Forget the Alamo
- The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
- By: Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, Jason Stanford
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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A way forward for reconciling objective reality
- By Josh Berthume on 06-19-21
By: Bryan Burrough, and others
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Ride the Devil's Herd
- Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang
- By: John Boessenecker
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling, and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.
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Tough Listen.
- By Nick on 05-15-20
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The Last Outlaws
- The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang
- By: Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The Last Outlaws is the thrilling true story of the last of one of the greatest outlaw gang. The dreaded Dalton Gang consisted of three brothers and their rotating cast of colorful accomplices who saw themselves as descended from the legendary James brothers. They soon became legends themselves, beginning their career as common horse thieves before graduating to robbing banks and trains.
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Long Way Around the Barn
- By B. Ireland on 12-12-23
By: Tom Clavin
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Red Sky Morning
- The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F
- By: Joe Pappalardo
- Narrated by: Chris Abell
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 1886 and 1888, Sgt. James Brooks of Texas Ranger Company F was engaged in three fatal gunfights, endured disfiguring bullet wounds, engaged in countless manhunts, was convicted for second-degree murder, and rattled Washington, DC, with a request for a pardon from the US president. His story anchors the tale of Joe Pappalardo’s Red Sky Morning, an epic saga of lawmen and criminals set in Texas during the waning years of the “Old West.”
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A good story
- By John R. Maxey on 07-26-23
By: Joe Pappalardo
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Six Years with the Texas Rangers
- By: James B. Gillett
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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From 1875 to 1881, James B. Gillett served as one of the Texas Rangers, the lawmen of the Old West. Looking back 40 years later, he tells of his numerous clashes with Native American warriors in the West Texas borderlands, of the Mason County War and the Horrell-Higgins feud, and of dangerous missions into Mexico. Originally published in 1921.
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Great book, fake accent.
- By Anonymous User on 10-29-21
By: James B. Gillett
All this being said, I would not reccomend Cult of Glory.
A Historical Hit Piece
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The Rangers were an exaggerated version of their times: bigoted inclined to kill rather than control, immune from prosecution and having little or no constraints a story better than the best of the lawless west
They ruled and killed with intent Indians, Blacks, outlaws, Mexicans and people who were innocent. Women, children were killed without fear of a trial or fear of punishment Linked to the KKK and on the side of the Confederacy. A very good and interesting read
Texas Rangers
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First, my issues with the narration. I am a native Texan. If you are going to narrate a book about Texas, for heaven's sake, learn the correct pronunciations of locations and historical figures. Every time he mispronounced Bowie (as if we were talking about David Bowie), I cringed. I am from Bowie, Texas, named for Jim Bowie, so I found this particularly irritating. Add Pedernales, Beauford Jester, San Jacinto, Bastrop, Mexia, and countless others--it was enough to almost make me quit listening.
Next, the book itself. I was hoping for an in depth study of the Rangers and their history, good, bad, neutral. Instead this book does a recitation, in jumpy narrative, of one event after another. Though some are put in the brutal, usually racists, historical context, there is nothing to really explain the men--their back stories (with few exceptions), for example. The passing mention of Bonnie and Clyde is a disappointment (the extra-jurisdictional use of the former Rangers, for instance), the disbanding by Ma Ferguson (and their investigation of her leading up to ot) was barely mentioned, and the 21st Century Rangers are given short notice. The Henry Lee Lucas chapter disturbs me because of a glaring error--I met Sheriff Conway in the 70's when I worked as a dispatcher one summer during my college years. I knew his son for years later. I have never heard him called "Hound Dog". I cannot help but wonder what else may be wrong in his research that I just didn't recognize.
Even so, because there are few books on the Rangers I do recommend this, with a grain of salt, for people who are interested.
Okay, not great
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A reference to a specific incident in the book which I feel is just as applicable to the Rangers story is that their flaws aren't so much a history of the Rangers, as that of America and Texas.
Society tends to judge based on current beliefs, customs, and mores - not so much those in place at the time/place of those and the actions being judged.
Some of the legends are dispelled. But the Rangers remain no less legendary.
A more even-handed review of Ranger history
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This is a wonderfully researched and impeccably told story. Mr. Swanson is not out to "get the Rangers", he is a truth teller. I never felt like he was applying 21st century morality or norms to the Rangers behavior. Many of the acts that he depicted can be seen as far outside the norm and beyond reproach when they occurred. He does a wonderful job throughout the story of showing the power of the victor's. The Rangers either dictated their own history, or had many enablers do it for them. What he is doing is critically important to how we understand our past. The is a story that deconstructs a myth that should have never existed, because it didn't. The mystique of the Ranges was built in embellished half truths, exaggerations, and lies and he calls them out for it. There were still men that exhibited great heroism and were selfless in the service of their interests and that of the State of Texas. The Texas Rangers protected and helped prop up a Texas that was a myth to anyone that was not a white, Christian Anglo. This book is for them as much as it is for anyone else. It can finally acknowledge the pain and misery inflicted upon them, and the Rangers should confront that as strongly as Mr. Swanson does.
This has always been Texas
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Must Read(listen)!
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Excellent
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Los rinches
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Always Believe the Offenders
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No exceptions
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