| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Portable Handbook of Texas. Edited by Roy R. Barkely and Mark F. Odintz. (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2000. ix + 1,072 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, index. $60.)

     Everyone knows that everything is big in Texas, or, at least, that exaggeration is a permanent state of mind. 1

     The Portable Handbook of Texas, weighing in at a little over six pounds and containing more than 1,072 pages, holds with tradition, giving a distinctly Texan meaning to the term "portable," just as its parent, The New Handbook of Texas, redefined "handbook" in Texas terms. Nevertheless, The Portable Handbook succeeds because it fulfills the purpose its publisher, Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), intended. 2

     The purpose of the original Handbook of Texas (Austin: 1952) was to assemble in one, practical, ready-reference work "the most significant information about the widest possible range of Texas topics." The need to update and the irresistible urge to expand in order to fulfill that vision resulted in The New Handbook of Texas (Austin, 1996), a whopping six-volume encyclopedia. Ron C. Tyler, director of TSHA, explains that the purpose of this new edition "is to make available a crystallized version of the larger work in a convenient, one-volume format." The editors express the hope "that it will be used as a vade mecum by travelers, newcomers, historians, teachers, students, entrepreneurs, and anyone else seeking a thorough and reliable reference work on the Lone Star State" (p. vii). . . .

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