As Texas Goes... – How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda - Hardcover

There is no one like Gail Collins: uproarious fun on every page, but with a serious point. In this wonderful book she devastates Texas for its hypocrisy, its ignorance, its worship of wealth. But you cannot keep laughing as she shows how the Texan mind works a baleful influence on the rest of the country.--Anthony Lewis

With wit and humor, Collins focuses on major Texas figures, from Davy Crockett to Rick Perry, to offer a portrait of an outsize state anxious to take on the task of setting the rest of the country straight and of the broader implications that has for the rest of the country.

There's no funnier writer about politics than Gail Collins, and in Texas, she's found the perfect canvas. The state's record at producing some of the nuttiest characters ever to enter American public life is matched only by its recent prowess in infecting the other 49 states with those politicians' most crackpot policy ideas. Collins serves up hilarity and horror in equal measure and leaves you rooting for Rick Perry to make good on his threat to lead Texas out of the Union.--Frank Rich

The reader who senses a touch of sarcasm would not be wrong.... [Collins] has a good eye for absurd details.--Erica Grieder

Collins lays out a convincing case that many of the nation's more misguided--sometimes outright wacky--policies originated in Texas, ranging from public education to environmental regulation to teaching kids about sex... Worth a read.--Deborah Yetter

Gail Collins, the best-selling author of When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, is a national columnist for the New York Times. She lives in New York City.