Intro to Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.

I've come to worry that "History" (capital-H) focuses too much on individuals and ideologies. Individuals and ideologies can move history, no doubt…but just as often, I’ve come to believe, they ride historical waves, rather than make them.

Every now and then, however, some invention, some innovation, or just some change in how technology is used comes along and moves history forward with a momentum of its own, subtler perhaps but far more powerful than any person or political ideology.

Such “engines” of history concentrate resources behind them and focus the human mind in front of them like nothing else. They change how people see the world and their place in it. The stories of these "engines," then, are the reasons why we see ourselves the way that we do.

This is what I want to explore this season: no politicians, no ideologies, just the ten engines that most meaningfully propelled Texas history forward and the ten innovations that most profoundly shaped our psychology as Texans… our collective “Texanity” as I call it. 

Cover art by David Moore, www.illustrationonline.com

www.BrandonSeale.com