The history of New Texas, the Texas we know today—oil-rich, insufferably loud, and unbearably proud of itself—begins in the late 1920s, when a horned frog wakes from its thirty-one-year nap in a courthouse cornerstone and flabbergasts the nation. In slightly over two decades ten individuals—their words, actions, and accomplishments—come to define the New Texas of the twenty-first century. While the history of Old Texas rests on oft-told legends of Houston, Austin, Travis, Crockett, Rusk, Lamar, and Seguin, today’s New Texas—proud, loud, self-promotional, sports-crazy, and too rich for its own good—is the Texas that percolates throughout the nation’s popular culture.In Texas Loud, Proud, and Brash: How Ten Mavericks Created the Twentieth-Century Lone Star State, author Rusty Williams profiles ten largely unsung men and women responsible for the Texas you love, hate, and (secretly) envy today.

Writer-historian Rusty Williams is the author of Red River Bridge War: A Texas-Oklahoma Border Battle (Texas A&M Press, 2016), which won the Oklahoma BookAward and was named the Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History of 2016 by theOklahoma Historical Society. Williams is also the author of My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans (University Press of Kentucky, 2011). Heregularly speaks to historical societies, book groups, and cultural gatherings. Williamscontributes articles to historical magazines and journals.