J. Frank Dobie spent his life documenting the grassroots history of Texas and this book is probably his finest examples. I've read all of his books and found this one to be the most informative. There's also a wonderful collection of photographs of many of the different variations of horn and hide at the rear of this book. You'll learn how the cattle came north from Mexico in the beginning and how early settlers rooted them out of the thickets of East Texas to start their herds. You'll learn about many of the principal cattlemen of early Texas including their drives north to the Kansas railhead.

If you enjoy Texas history you'll really enjoy this book.

Frank Dobie, a University of Texas professor, spent years collecting stories of the old southwest. Many are tales that he wrote down of 19th Century life. Several are collected into volumes about important parts of life at the time, including "Longhorns" and "The Mustangs".

They provide great insight into the origin of those animals and their importance to people who lived in those times.

Another excellent Dobie book is "I'll Tell You a Tale," with excerpts from these two books and others. The anthology includes tales of gold, stories of irony, Old West characters, and saddle stories.

This book is classic Dobie in style and is "the" book on Texas Longhorns. Dobie takes us through the history of the breed, through the animal, through the men and women that loved, used and abused them, and through the many tales that surround them, both fiction and fact. The animal stands large in this work, but the flavor of the old days, of the hardships, of the ranch life, of the love for the land of the people who lived and died there is a part of it too. For anyone with an interest in this breed, this book is a must read. For anyone else with a feel for the Southwestern United States, Texas, cowboys, or the land, it's time well spent.

Without it, an outsider cannot begin to appreciate or understand the King Ranch. I read both volumes in days.

Ok. At this point in your life you're pretty far away from watching Bonanza, Gunsmoke, etc. with your family on that old black & white Zenith. You no longer have the toy six-shooter and cowboy hat that were the joy of a long ago Christmas or birthday. You've forgotten whether you preferred to play the sheriff or the outlaw, but you probably remember the name of your imaginary horse. Read this book. Not because it's great literature (the writing is merely serviceable) but because it reminds you why the image of the cowboy era is so powerful and enduring. And it's all true. Wonderful read

The most authentic book ever written about the Texas cowboy. J. Frank Dobie said that "no record of cowboy life has supplanted this rollicky, reckless, realistic chronicle" and that it is "the most-real, non-fiction book on cowboy life." Siringo worked as a cowboy for Shanghai Pearce, rode with a posse of Texas cowboys to New Mexico to track down Billy the Kid and took part in numerous cattle drives. A Texas history classic.

This book is truly a waste of time and money.What this man did is for the most part ludicrous if not down right bull... The author's hero worship of the subject is evident in the fact that the subject is potrayed almost as a saint.The really bad part is the somewhat warped view of history the author submits.Some of the events and people written about here just didn't do or act as potrayed in this book.I've read other J.Frank Dobie books and have been delighted by them.This one does not measure up to the others.Anyone interested in reading a great outdoor adventure book in the biography field,should read "Alaska's Wolf Man" by Jim Rearden.It is available from Amazon.com and is worth the price.

I rank this book so highly as I do all such type of literature. It may not bring long philosophical answers but it does make us look at who would appear to the man on the street if he saw Ben Lilly as someone uneducated and ingnorant when he is quite the contrary. I spent a lot of time traveling the US and Europe years
ago and made it a point to stop and talk with people doing what might seem menial jobs. I talked with a gardner in Madrid near the Pardo Museum who had worked a rose garden all of his life, he was then eighty years old. Ben Lilly brings to life a person who lived in a time of interesting characters of this country. He reminds me of the early market hunters found on the east coast of this country. Do some research through the Georgia Historial Society in Savannah, Georgia. They provided fresh waterfowl and game for the local resturants. All of these men were of a unique and misunderstood nature. Ben Lilly was one of these men.

Ben Lilly lived in the wild, and he was as wild as the predators he hunted. No animal in the woods was more at home than the bearded, eccentric Ben Lilly. He and his hounds never slept in a house for over 40 years. A grim destroyer of bears and mtn lions, working with an Old Testament fervor? Or a keen observer of nature, a naturalist that benefitted modern science and a pioneer of game management? A little of both perhaps, but doubtless the greatest bear and lion biologists of our day could learn much if able to sit at Mr. Lilly's campfire in the rugged Mogollon mtns of the Southwest. Lilly could have hunted with Bridger, Carson, Old Bill Williams and the best of them. No man is said to have matched his endurance, tracking skills or marksmanship. He lived into a modern age but remained as wild as the forest primeval.

It has been some time since I read this book, and would like to read it again. If my memory serves me correctly, the book is about breeding and raising fighting bulls. The ranchers reputation if based on his success. I don't think I would cherish the job. Again, the fact that the bulls never see a human on foot until they meet in the ring I personally found very interesting.

It has been some time since I read this book. It was mostly about the raising of this special breed of bull, how they are selected and what they are exposed to. The ranches who raise them take great pride in their finished product. If my memory serves me correctly, I read the book after seeing the movie, The Sun Also Rises. If you like bullfighting and all aspects of it, you will like this book.