Stephen Harrigan’s Many Talents

When he’s asked about Texas history, Steve Harrigan often starts his reply with a caveat: “I’m not a professional historian.” Nonetheless, he’s one of the most astute researchers, thinkers, and writers about our state’s eventful past. His 2019 book, Big Wonderful Thing, was widely praised as his generation’s most thoughtful and engaging chronicle of the Lone Star State. I refer to it often and always enjoy Steve’s surfacing of fascinating and previously overlooked figures, including women and Texans of color. I also appreciate his adoption of what one of my favorite history professors called “moral humility”—the discipline of studying the attitudes and standards of the time about which you’re writing, rather than assuming that we today are somehow of superior conscience. Without in any way…

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