Season 5: The Engines of Texanity

In telling these new histories of old Texas, I worry that I’ve been focusing too much on individuals. Individuals 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 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. 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 collective psychology as Texans… our “Texanity” as I call it. 

Cover art by David Moore, www.illustrationonline.com www.BrandonSeale.com