Ebook The Blood of Heroes The 13Day Struggle for the Alamoand the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation James Donovan 9780316053730 Books

Product details Paperback 528 pages Publisher Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (May 7, 2013) Language English ISBN-10 0316053732

The Blood of Heroes The 13Day Struggle for the Alamoand the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation James Donovan 9780316053730 Books Reviews

• My son gave me this book after he finished reading it. I wasn't sure what to think. I lived in Texas for six years, and I love the state and the people who live there. Texas is truly unique. I now live in Colorado, but I still miss Texas. I visited The Alamo several years ago, and was struck with how small it is. Granted, much of it has been torn down, and the area around it is populated by less-than-historic businesses. It seems like an afterthought now, and it is sad to me that it has been relegated to this stature.
  
  I never really knew much more about The Alamo and the heroes who died there besides the fact that David Crockett met his fate in that shrine. This book was hard to read in many respects. It's not meant to be a fun read. It's meant to be a detailed account of the people who died fighting insurmountable odds for a cause in which they believed. And those heroes were an inspiration to an entire nation.
  
  Reading of the sometimes graphic descriptions of the deaths of these men was not easy. But to know that they stood strong and died strong in their belief is something that I will never forget. For those of you who are looking for some kind of historical novel, this is not it. It doesn't weave novelistic events into history. Instead, it brings to life the people who lived it, not as mere "characters" in a story, but as living, breathing men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for this country and the freedoms we enjoy. Women? Yes...their sacrifice was in supporting their loved ones and having to deal with the horror of their deaths.
  
  This book is meticulously researched, and yet written in a style that is easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the true story of The Alamo without the myths.
• I thoroughly enjoyed James Donovan's book "The Blood of Heroes." I have read many books over the years on the history of the Alamo, the Texas Revolution and fight for independence from Mexico, and individual biographies of many of the Alamo defenders. Donovan offers a fresh perspective. His book is well documented as Donovan cites many sources from his thorough research and offers insights into the many personalities that were drawn to San Antonio in 1836. This book is more than a rehash about the Battle of the Alamo but an in depth look at the people who had to make the hard choice to stand and fight, knowing that they would most likely perish in the battle. If you are an Alamo "fanatic" or just have a passing interest in Texas history, Donovan's book, "The Blood of Heroes" is a compelling read.
• Since I did not want to become a historian or researcher myself to know everything about the Alamo, I searched here to get one book (only one!) which could give me at least the basics about this historical and very influential event back in 1836.
  
  And I think this book complied with my objectives, and I feel I have the information and knowledge I needed about the Alamo. I did not know about Walter Lord's book ("A Time to Stand", from 1968), which writer James Donovan himself says is the best on the subject. This will have to wait another day... (if ever).
  
  In short, a good, concise, fast pacing book (without relying on cheap narrative devices). I thought it lacks a little bit on a profound and more objective view into the Mexican reasons for the fight, but whatever...
• First I want to say I received this book a week before the scheduled day . The book was in excellent condition when I received it . Now to the book. This book is the best told story about the Alamo!!! The author James Donovan took the main characters and decribed how each one ended up at the Alamo. I was reading this book when we visited San Antonio and visited the Alamo. I could not put this book down !!! If you are like me and watched Davy Crockett on television you will really enjoy this book . This book is loaded with history!! Please buy this book if you are interested in the Alamo!! I would give it ten stars if I could !!!
• James Donovan is to be congratulated for THE BLOOD OF HEROES, a particularly well-written and thoroughly researched new study of the Texas War for Independence, which I think makes an excellent introduction to the subject. It is no easy task for an author to charge himself with the goal of saying something fresh about the Alamo and its related incidents and interested parties, but here Donovan acquits himself honorably. He has found some previously overlooked sources for his readers to consider, and he is reasonably fair and balanced in his recognition of the various points of view pertaining to the War and its causes and significance. A few minor complaints keep me from awarding the book five stars a surprising lack of maps and other illustrations is one, and a couple of slight factual errors (at one point, Donovan seems to claim that Andrew Jackson lived in the Tennessee town that bears his name, which of course is not true)is another. Overall, though, I am confident that Donovan's work is worthy of addition to that groaning bookcase stuffed with the works of such geniuses as Lord, Tinkle, Davis, Nofti, and others who have paved the way. A final observation the negative reviews of this book--at least the ones I bothered to read--are among the least useful and most unfair critiques of an author's work that I have ever come across on . A couple of naysayers claim the book is difficult to read or is somehow boring, like most history textbooks tend to be. I honestly cannot fathom how anybody can take issue with Donovan's writing style--he nicely combines the novelist's prose with the historian's research. Somebody else gives Donovan the raspberries because he denies the story of Col. Travis drawing a line in the sand--apparently this "critic" skipped the last line of the Afterword, where Donovan asserts that the story of the line is "acceptable, factual history" (p. 374). Somebody else dismisses the book because the artwork on the cover is "historically inaccurate"--conveniently forgetting that authors rarely have final approval over cover art, and ignoring the fact that the cover image does not actually portray the familiar hump that tops the Alamo today. These erroneous or unsupported attacks on Donovan are usually found in reviews that contain numerous spelling and grammatical problems, which reminds us that bad proofreading frequently reflects bad (or at least lazy) thinking. At the end of the day, THE BLOOD OF HEROES is a very solid piece of work and deserves the attention and respect of anybody with an interest in the Alamo or history in general.