In the 1980's, I had the great privilege of working as a staff writer for the Handbook Of Texas published by the Texas State Historical Association. This massive encyclopedia of Texas history is anything but a handbook. The print edition contains more than 23,000 articles on the people, places and events of Texas past in seven huge volumes. Fortunately, this vast wealth of information is available free online at http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/. Here you will find first class historical research county-by-county and place-by-place on just about any Texas topic. It is a goldmine of information for teachers, students, writers and anyone interested in Texas history. More than 3,000 folks from every discipline and background contributed to the research and writing.

Like anything written by us humans, history is subject to mistakes, errors, viewpoints and individual agendas. Certainly, the Handbook is not flawless. But the research and writing was done with great care and careful editing. Footnotes were required on every paragraph and the research was meticulously reviewed. There are errors but at the same time, the online edition has a link for corrections and corrections are continuously made.

Recently the Handbook and the art of history came under fire in public by a prominent archaeologist who continues to belittle us lowly historians because he apparently feels scientific method should somehow be applied to the telling of the past. The magnificent one seems to take Napoleon's statement that "history is but a fable agreed upon" literally and not tongue in cheek. No one questions the huge value of using all disciplines in the research and writing of history. But history, thank goodness, is an art and not a science. Archaeology is mostly written for academics. Good history is written for everyone so we, at least, have the opportunity to learn something from the mistakes of the past. Gj

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