{"product_id":"9781619029965","title":"The Last Sheriff in Texas: A True Tale of Violence and the Vote","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Amazon Best History Book of the Month\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[A] narrative with resonance well beyond seekers of Texas history. \u003ci\u003eThe Last Sheriff in Texas\u003c\/i\u003e would be an amazing allegory for our times, were it fiction. Instead it suggests cultural trenches that we view as new that were dug decades ago.\" — \u003ci\u003eHouston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeeville, Texas, was the most American of small towns—the place that GIs had fantasized about while fighting through the ruins of Europe, a place of good schools, clean streets, and churches. Old West justice ruled, as evidenced by a 1947 shootout when outlaws surprised popular sheriff Vail Ennis at a gas station and shot him five times, point-blank, in the belly. Ennis managed to draw his gun and put three bullets in each assailant; he reloaded and shot them three times more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e magazine’s full-page article on the shooting was seen by some as a referendum on law enforcement owing to the sheriff’s extreme violence, but supportive telegrams from all across America poured into Beeville’s tiny post office. Yet when a second violent incident threw Ennis into the crosshairs of public opinion once again, the uprising was orchestrated by an unlikely figure: his close friend and Beeville’s favorite son, Johnny Barnhart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarnhart confronted Ennis in the election of 1952: a landmark standoff between old Texas, with its culture of cowboy bravery and violence, and urban Texas, with its lawyers, oil institutions, and a growing Mexican population. The town would never be the same again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Last Sheriff in Texas\u003c\/i\u003e is a riveting narrative about the postwar American landscape, an era grappling with the same issues we continue to face today. Debate over excessive force in law enforcement, Anglo-Mexican relations, gun control, the influence of the media, urban-rural conflict, the power of the oil industry, mistrust of politicians and the political process—all have surprising historical precedence in the story of Vail Ennis and Johnny Barnhart.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Counterpoint Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47036814033136,"sku":"9781619029965","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781619029965_p0.jpg?v=1763855952","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781619029965","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}