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stevenyenzer's review against another edition
3.0
Entertaining and quite interesting at times, although I found Collins's partisan pot shots a little cheap and tiresome.
jsisco's review against another edition
4.0
The personification of everything I despise about living in this state, minus the horrendously poor driving and crippling self-absorption.
liberrydude's review against another edition
4.0
An engaging and interesting book that, well, many Texans probably won't like this book. It doesn't paint a favorable picture of the future for Texas either. Texas likes to think of itself as the biggest and best-est but they are rapidly becoming a feudal place with lots of disadvantaged folks working low paying jobs with no health care. They are rivaling Mississippi in being in the bottom on many lists in health and education as well as social-unwed mothers, STD's, etc. They are twice what California is for teen pregnancy! And my children and grandchildren are living there. I've been thinking of retiring there as well-well I was, LOL. This book just confirms a lot of what I had already read. The job creation is pretty phoney. Say what you want about California being crazy, Texas makes Calfornia look pretty sane-it's in the Texas Constitution that an atheist can't become governor. Lots of low taxes and lousy services. The author doesn't even cover the prison system as much as she does business, education, jobs, and healtcare. It's a state full of irony as the author frequently points out. LBJ created some of the most effective social programs to help Texas and now the current folks in charge are dismantling them and taking the state back in time, all in the name of states' rights and the glorification of capitalism.
marymanor's review against another edition
4.0
I like Gail Collins, and I liked her analysis of Texas politics. There was a nice mix of history, current political thought, and humor, none of it tedious--the book moves quickly while giving enough time to its ideas.
regferk's review against another edition
4.0
Between the Texas led banking deregulation and giving the country No Child Left Behind while coming in dead last in the country for "percent of population 25 and older with a high school diploma", Texas is pulling the rest of the country south. Living here for most of my life, it's almost easy to forget that there is a "rest of the country" other than those vague dreams of OZ. It was very nice to get an outsiders perspective on the crazy that is Texas.
itssaltwater's review against another edition
4.0
Read for a Texas History class. This would probably have been an easier read if I was educated on politics in Texas from the 1980's-90's. However, still gave me a great look inside to Texas politics and I was left pondering and deeply engrossed as to what comes next for Texas.
nightowljulie's review against another edition
3.0
This book has some really interesting anecdotes and makes a great case for why “state’s rights’” never solely impact just the state. However, the book went so in depth at times that I lost interest.
stevereally's review
3.0
Vitally important topic and some very good information, but there could be more information here in the service of more analysis. Collins sometimes wastes sentences or even whole paragraphs in what feels kind of like an attempt to pad out the word count.
It was worth reading but frustrating, because it felt like it should have been more than it was.
It was worth reading but frustrating, because it felt like it should have been more than it was.
tonitrap's review against another edition
4.0
A concise examination of some of the most rightest (ie. less gov., no tax, no women's health) views and legislation that has evolved in Texas and reverberated throughout the country. The coverage is quick and I sometimes wished to see a more thorough examination. The section on education and the unfortunate legacy of "No Child Left Behind" was especially interesting. No doubt Collins can be accused of bias, but she makes very legitimate points and she tells it all in her usual tongue in cheek manner.
hungrylindsay's review
3.0
If you pick up Gail Collins’s new book hoping for a Seamus the Dog reference, you might be disappointed.
The author and New York Times columnist is best known of late for her running gag of inserting a reference to Seamus into each of her columns, but Collins has long had other interests.
Her latest work is As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. With a title like that, you can understand that there would be precious little space to devote to the time Mitt Romney drove 650 miles to his vacation home in Ontario with the family’s Irish Setter strapped to the roof of the car.
But, like I said, this book is not about Seamus the Dog.
What it is about is how Texas has used its sheer size and strong political forces to drive the national agenda. If you don’t believe that this is the case, I leave you with this tidbit: in 1988, addressing climate change was part of the Republican platform. Now, through the hard work of (Texan) Tom DeLay, “the political debate about global warming, when it comes up at all, is usually about whether or not it exists.”
As Collins points out: "We feel Texas’s influence in our lives every day, but we’ll be feeling it much more in the future, due to its enormous population growth, helped along by those interesting sex education classes and the almost complete lack of state family planning funds."
I think it’s safe to say that most Texans will not love what Collins has to say about their state, but it’s not necessarily because of a left-right divide.
Instead, Collins notes, what is perceived as a conservative/liberal battle is really a “great, historic American division between the people who live in crowded places and the people who live in empty places.” Texas – even though it has densely populated urban areas – exemplifies the empty place ethos.
In an “empty” place, government looks different than it does to those who live on the coasts – or even in the Midwest.
From the Texas standpoint, Collins asks, "What’s the point [of government]? It’s just going to tax you or get in your way. If a robber breaks into your house, it could take hours for law enforcement to arrive; carrying a gun is more practical. Government can’t help you and it has no business telling you what you can do with your property. Who could you hurt? There’s nobody else in sight. You’re on your own and you like it that way."
Collins – who views Texas from the political left and from a “crowded place” – asserts that the “empty place” ethos is untenable for the rest of the country, where we live close enough to each other that some regulation is in order.
As Texas Goes… ends with a rather grim prognosis: “if Texas goes south, it’s taking us along.”
An uplifting note does follow. “Texas on the Brink,” a report produced by the Legislative Study Group in the Texas House of Representatives, appears in the book’s Appendix, and for all the grim statistics it offers (Texas is dead last in the percent of the population with a high school diploma, percent of uninsured people, amount of pollution released into the air and water, etc.), it also offers a bit of hope: “Texas is on the brink, but Texas can do better. The choice is ours.”
Ultimately, that means the choice isours, too, but, first, we have to choose not to follow Texas into the future. Is this a choice we will make?
Collins thinks not. However, if you’re going to read a book by a writer who thinks the nation is facing disaster, you might as well read one as funny as this. Collins is witty and darkly comic in a time when the national political scene could use a good dose of levity.
You wouldn’t think that a book that ends with sixty pages of notes, an appendix, and a bibliography would be concise and immensely readable, but there’s a reason that Collins has a loyal following at The New York Times.
Readers who pick up As Texas Goes… for a dose of Collins’ signature incisive commentary will not be disappointed.
The author and New York Times columnist is best known of late for her running gag of inserting a reference to Seamus into each of her columns, but Collins has long had other interests.
Her latest work is As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. With a title like that, you can understand that there would be precious little space to devote to the time Mitt Romney drove 650 miles to his vacation home in Ontario with the family’s Irish Setter strapped to the roof of the car.
But, like I said, this book is not about Seamus the Dog.
What it is about is how Texas has used its sheer size and strong political forces to drive the national agenda. If you don’t believe that this is the case, I leave you with this tidbit: in 1988, addressing climate change was part of the Republican platform. Now, through the hard work of (Texan) Tom DeLay, “the political debate about global warming, when it comes up at all, is usually about whether or not it exists.”
As Collins points out: "We feel Texas’s influence in our lives every day, but we’ll be feeling it much more in the future, due to its enormous population growth, helped along by those interesting sex education classes and the almost complete lack of state family planning funds."
I think it’s safe to say that most Texans will not love what Collins has to say about their state, but it’s not necessarily because of a left-right divide.
Instead, Collins notes, what is perceived as a conservative/liberal battle is really a “great, historic American division between the people who live in crowded places and the people who live in empty places.” Texas – even though it has densely populated urban areas – exemplifies the empty place ethos.
In an “empty” place, government looks different than it does to those who live on the coasts – or even in the Midwest.
From the Texas standpoint, Collins asks, "What’s the point [of government]? It’s just going to tax you or get in your way. If a robber breaks into your house, it could take hours for law enforcement to arrive; carrying a gun is more practical. Government can’t help you and it has no business telling you what you can do with your property. Who could you hurt? There’s nobody else in sight. You’re on your own and you like it that way."
Collins – who views Texas from the political left and from a “crowded place” – asserts that the “empty place” ethos is untenable for the rest of the country, where we live close enough to each other that some regulation is in order.
As Texas Goes… ends with a rather grim prognosis: “if Texas goes south, it’s taking us along.”
An uplifting note does follow. “Texas on the Brink,” a report produced by the Legislative Study Group in the Texas House of Representatives, appears in the book’s Appendix, and for all the grim statistics it offers (Texas is dead last in the percent of the population with a high school diploma, percent of uninsured people, amount of pollution released into the air and water, etc.), it also offers a bit of hope: “Texas is on the brink, but Texas can do better. The choice is ours.”
Ultimately, that means the choice isours, too, but, first, we have to choose not to follow Texas into the future. Is this a choice we will make?
Collins thinks not. However, if you’re going to read a book by a writer who thinks the nation is facing disaster, you might as well read one as funny as this. Collins is witty and darkly comic in a time when the national political scene could use a good dose of levity.
You wouldn’t think that a book that ends with sixty pages of notes, an appendix, and a bibliography would be concise and immensely readable, but there’s a reason that Collins has a loyal following at The New York Times.
Readers who pick up As Texas Goes… for a dose of Collins’ signature incisive commentary will not be disappointed.