The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 93, July 1989 - April, 1990 Page: 270

Southwestern Historzcal Quarterly

Volume 13 is primarily concerned with affairs of the revolution.
There is some correspondence relating to the Alamo and a somewhat
smaller number of items concerning the defenses of South Texas. More
attention is given to the Convention of 1836 that met on March I at
Washington-on-the-Brazos, and properly so, since Sterling Robertson
served as a delegate to the convention. Nothing in the documents pre-
sented in this volume suggests that Robertson's role was exceptional,
but McLean's research and discussion of the Convention and the Con-
stitution of 1836 is a thorough and valuable contribution to those who
are interested in the revolutionary period. McLean presents little infor-
mation that cannot be found elsewhere, but his organization of it in a
single volume, together with copious references and explanatory notes,
is most useful.
Lamar Universzty ADRIAN ANDERSON
Texas in Transition. Edited by Michael L. Gillette. (Austin: Lyndon
Baines Johnson Library and Lyndon Baines Johnson School of
Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, 1986. Pp. xxviii+ 226.
Acknowledgments, contributors, introduction, welcome, photo-
graphs. $9.95, paper.)
In the sesquicentennial year, 220 Texans described as "distin-
guished" (p. xxi) and as "leaders" (p. xxii) from different fields met in
Austin under the aegis of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and
sponsored jointly by the University of Texas and Texas Monthly maga-
zine. The comments at that conference comprise the contents of this
book. In his introductory remarks, editor Michael L. Gillette states that
despite an attempt to get views from a broad swath of Texans, the sym-
posium became, rather, a forum for "professional communicators and
observers than of the state as a whole" (p. xxii). The reader will per-
ceive quickly the accuracy of that observation, for there is a large and
obvious absence of many who could be classified as distinguished lead-
ers. Among the missing are those from the scientific, philosophical, ele-
emosynary, and large commercial and industrial communities; and
with a few exceptions, one will not find Texans whose political inclina-
tions fall into that category of what is generally labeled in today's vo-
cabulary as conservative.
With politically conservative comment considerably reduced, philo-
sophical comment almost silenced, and scientific comment altogether
ignored, what remains are views that are, for the great part at least, re-
strictive, didactic, thumpingly moralistic, and generally conforming to
what again may be defined in contemporary political parlance as liberal

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