Book Reviews

A History of the Small Arms Made by the Sterling Armament Company: Excellence in Adversity Reviewed by: Jack Shanley Peter Laidler, James Edmiston & David Howroyd. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2020. ISBN 978-15-26773-30-2. xv + 352 pp., 32 col. illus., 350 b. & w. illus. £40. Winchester Model 1895: Last of the Classic Lever Actions Reviewed by: Danny Michael Rob Kassab & Brad Dunbar. Boca Raton: Buffalo Cove Publishing, 2019. ISBN 978-0-578-46655-2. 432 pp., numerous col. illus. $89.99. Firearms of the Texas Rangers: From the Frontier Era to the Modern Age Reviewed by: Patrick Senft Doug Dukes. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-574-41810-1. 640 pp., 182 b. & w. illus. $45.

The Aztlán Outlaw and Black Reform Politics

Chapter 7 takes up the state’s most famous prison hostage crisis to analyze prisoner Fred Carrasco as an Aztlán outlaw who drew on nationalist and Chicano ideologies to critique the prison plantation, while also showing how this moment of carceral violence contrasted with and derailed the hopes of African American political reformers. Carrasco’s hostage crisis also offers a critical historical parallel to Reies Tijerina’s 1967 raid of a New Mexico courthouse to demand land grant rights. This chapter offers Carrasco’s hostage crisis alongside the historical context of Chicano nationalist demands, particularly Reies Tijerina’s 1967 raid of a New Mexico courthouse to demand land grant rights. Both the Alianza courthouse encounter with criminal justice and the Carrasco hostage crisis drew upon a history of violent border confrontation with border police and the Texas Rangers, that stretched across time and borders. This chapter concludes, however, with the prison reality that the Carrasco’s hostage crisis dashed the hopes of Black political reformers at a crucial moment in their legislative campaign.

“Just Looks Like More of Texas Far as I’m Concerned”

W. K. Stratton’s essay focuses on the dangerous milieu in South Texas during the period in which the action of The Wild Bunch takes place. The essay is filled with data about intimidating sheriffs, murderous Texas Rangers, notorious bandits, and desperados of all varieties, individuals as colorful and horrifying as the ragtag collection of misfits and killers who populate portions of Peckinpah’s film.