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light the successes that the school has experienced. This volume adopts such a narrative tone throughout, but at the same time it also honestly and forthrightly analyzes the difficulties and rough spots that the university has experienced over time. It is heartening to know that those who today lead Southwestern University show great pride in the school’s historical heritage by sponsoring this publication , even to the point of offering a copy of this volume free of charge to all Southwestern University alumni. Those affiliated with the university will find much within the pages of this volume to reinforce their pride and satisfaction with the school, while those readers who are making first contact with the university by means of this volume will have a detailed exposure to the history of the school, which has played a significant role in the history of Texas education from the 1840s until the present day. Austin College Light Townsend Cummins Memories of the Branch Davidians: The Autobiography of David Koresh’s Mother. By Bonnie Haldeman, edited by Catherine Wessinger. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007. Pp. 214. Photographs, notes, works cited, index. ISBN 978-193279 -298-0. $24.95, paper.) Following the clash between federal agents and the Branch Davidians in 1993, a number of books have appeared from both scholarly and popular presses assessing the movement, its leader David Koresh, and the tragic unfolding of events that culminated in the death of seventy-six Branch Davidians at the end of the standoff. These works reflect a wide variety of questions and perspectives. Some are pragmatic in nature and seek to dispel biased views of so-called religious “cults” in order to avoid a repeat of the events at Waco; representative titles include Why Waco? (University of California Press, 1995) by James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher and Learning Lessons from Waco (Syracuse University Press, 2001) by Jayne Seminare Docherty. Books such as James D. Faubion’s The Shadows and Lights of Waco (Princeton University Press, 2001), on the other hand, represent more thoroughgoing ethnographies of the Branch Davidians. Other works reinforce widely held stereotypes of the Branch Davidians by depicting them as simply one more example of religiously inspired violence, as can be seen in James A. Haught’s treatment of the movement in Holy Hatred (Prometheus Books, 1995). Catherine Wessinger’s edited volume, Memories of the Branch Davidians, fits within a very different category within the literature related to Koresh and his followers—namely first-person accounts of Branch Davidian survivors. A compilation of a series of oral interviews with Bonnie Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, Memories of the Branch Davidians reads as an autobiography of Haldeman’s life. Haldeman recounts details surrounding Koresh’s early years, his growing interest in religious matters, and finally her own observations as a surviving member of the Branch Davidian community. Whereas other first-person accounts tend to stress controversial aspects of the movement (see for example Marc Breault and Martin King’s Inside the Cult: A Member’s Chilling, Exclusive Account of 358 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 358 Madness and Depravity in David Koresh’s Compound [Signet Books, 1993]) or emphasize the climactic events surrounding the government’s siege of the Branch Davidian compound (to a certain degree David Thibodeau and Leon Whiteson’s A Place Called Waco: A Survivor’s Story [Public Affairs, 1999] follows this pattern), throughout the work Haldeman highlights ordinary aspects of Koresh’s life and of the Branch Davidian community. She describes her memories of her grandchildren, for example, as well as her memories of adherents’ mundane routines in the compound including their dietary habits and their leisure activities. The most poignant observations in the book come at the end of the autobiography when Haldeman delineates her own perspective regarding her son’s messianic claims. In addition to the autobiographical core of the book, Wessinger provides fiftyfive pages of very thorough footnotes that help the reader contextualize Haldeman’s statements, as well as an appendix containing poems by Koresh. Taken on their own, Wessinger’s footnotes function as a serviceable introduction to the major events and personalities involved in...

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