The author James E. Crisp created a very informative book called “Sleuthing The Alamo”, which did result in the questioning of some historical facts about Texas. Overall, throughout the book he kept leaning towards an argument that detailed itself to be the main thesis of this book. Mr. Crisp’s main argument throughout the novel was that artifacts and evidence in Texas history can be unreliable due to mistranslation, myths, but most importantly the distortion of the truth on the history of Texas. He sought to find the truth by attempting to reveal the mystery of these myths, but to also bring to light evidence that has been ignored or even at times censored. As he quoted once, “This little book is the story of one historian’s attempt to separate Texas myth from Texas history.” (p.25) …show more content…
Crisp did support his argument about mistranslations and myths by providing strong evidence on the mistranslation of a Germans writing, written by Ehrenberg a man actually under the command of Sam Houston during the Texas revolution. “Numerous mistranslations were the result, and some of these revered the original meaning of the text-masking Ehrenberg’s actual ideas almost as completely as did the intentional censorship of Churchill’s text.” (p.55) The problem was exactly what Mr. Crisp was arguing that certain editions such as the Churchill or Bartholomae can be censored or mistranslated. The author also provides more evidence on the basis of mistranslation when Dr. Dimmick and a team were looking for artifacts in Wharton County, Texas. Here the issue was whether the de la Pena diary was a fraud, but when Dr. Dimmick could not find any artifacts, he had contacted Mr. Crisp on whether the diaries, directions were indeed correct, but what happened was a mistake “either in geometry or mistranslation”, for Mr. Crisp was able to give him the right translation. (pg.112) Dr. Dimmick at the end found what he was looking