With its dignified courthouse set among shade trees and lawns dotted with monuments to prominent citizens and fallen veterans; the courthouse square remains the civic center in a majority of the county seats of Texas. Yet the squares themselves vary in form and layout; reflecting the different town-planning traditions that settlers brought from Europe; Mexico; and the United States. In fact; one way to trace settlement patterns and ethnic dispersion in Texas is by mapping the different types of courthouse squares.This book offers the first complete inventory of Texas courthouse squares; drawn from extensive archival research and site visits to 139 of the 254 county seats. Robert Veselka classifies every existing plan by type and origin; including patterns and variants not previously identified. He also explores the social and symbolic functions of these plans as he discusses the historical and modern uses of the squares. He draws interesting new conclusions about why the courthouse square remains the hub of commercial and civic activity in the smaller county seats; when it has lost its prominence in others.
#240283 in eBooks 1982-11-15 1982-11-15File Name: B00EE3BHME
Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Whenever I take a book (and probably you too) by ...By Ken DershowitzThis is a book of 9.5. Let me explain you why.Whenever I take a book (and probably you too) by instinct; I am (we are?) "aware" of how far are we in our reading; and of how much is still left to finish the whole book. Actually; we expect to reach "soon" the last pages...and end our "mission". However; when I was reading Werners interview; something strange happen; I did not want that my reading of it could ever ended. The whole book is full of wisdom; sarcasm; sharp humor; teachings; culture; critical thinking and emotions in such an exquisite way; that you want more amd more and more of it; and as a reader you become "sad" that it will have an ending. As Lawrence Krauss (and Truffau) mentioned: Herzog is a living Genius; and this interview is so well done; so clearly articulared; that at the end; you will want to know more about Herzog; to learn more about yourself. There is only one book about Herzog; better than this one: the guide to the perpexled (that is a book of 10).