San Antonio's unique appeal is the pervasive ambience of a colorful, authentic past. Here real heroes lived and died. Here immigrants of all stripes labored to build a city--the nation's ninth-largest--that on one hand stands tall and gleaming, yet on the other seems little changed from the 1920s, or from Victorian times, or from the reign of Spanish kings. San Antonio: Outpost of Empires is a vivid, honest portrait in words and pictures of San Antonio's evolution over the course of nearly three centuries, from the days of the colonists of New Spain to the defense of the Alamo to the inrush of a "jumble of races" to the rapid growth of the modern era. Here the faces of persons like Davy Crockett, Robert E. Lee, Theodore Roosevelt, Geronimo and Queen Elizabeth II mingle with those of Spanish missionaries, female aviators, traildrivers, chili vendors, firemen and birdsellers as San Antonio: Outpost of Empires documents a remarkable city's march through time. The text is enhanced by 140 dramatically-displayed illustrations. A handsome volume that provides a brief overview of San Antonio's history and outstanding illustrations that bring the author's written history to life. . . . Fisher's . . . training as a journalist and his award-winning career with San Antonio newspapers serve him well as he presents a poetic and insightful summary of the city's origins and development to the present day. The material is arranged chronologically and united around the central theme of the search for San Antonio's unique flavor. Some 140 superb illustrations accompany the author's text; several are published for the first time in this volume. While ultimately no city's aura is definable, Fisher offers enlightening reflections on San Antonio's distinctive combination of geographic isolation, mixture of peoples and development as a frontier outpost under the governance of five successive parent nations, . . . yet another testament to the legacy of a city that unites history, natural beauty, hospitality, cultures and a festive spirit to form a singular mystique. -- Southwestern Historical Quarterly This is an excellent book for the person who wants to read about the Alamo City's history without going into a lot of detail. -- Review of Texas Books This is an excellent book for the person who wants to read about the Alamo City's history without going into a lot of detail. -- Review of Texas Books Lewis F. Fisher has observed San Antonio for some 40 years as a daily newspaper reporter, suburban newspaper publisher and author. His River Walk: The Epic Story of San Antonio's River won the national Benjmin Franklin Award for Best Regional Book. Among his other books are Saving San Antonio: The Precarious Preservation of a Heritage and The Spanish Missions of San Antonio . From the Introduction: San Antonio's roots were planted too far north for it to grow into an archetypical Spanish colonial town as planned, and it became too civilized by European immigrants to be dismissed as a brawling frontier settlement. San Antonio is too far west to be characteristically southern and too far east to be completely southwestern, too far from the Rio Grande to be a border city yet close enough to capture a sense of Mexico, too far from major transportation routes to be a world-class commercial center, but big enough to be the nation's ninth-largest city. From Chapter 8: Unlike so many major travel destinations, the primary appeal of San Antonio is not amusement parks or resort hotels--San Antonio has those, too--but the pervasive ambience of an authentic past. San Antonio, clearly, is a place where real heroes lived and died, where immigrants of all stripes labored to build a city that on one hand stands tall and gleaming yet on the other, somehow, around the corner, seems little changed from the 1920s, or from Victorian times, or from the reign of Spanish kings.