T. R. Fehrenbach


Theodore Reed "T. R." Fehrenbach, Jr. was an American historian, columnist, and the former head of the Texas Historical Commission. He graduated from Princeton University in 1947 and wrote more than twenty books, including the bestseller Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans and This Kind of War, about the Korean War. Senator John McCain called this book “perhaps the best book ever written on the Korean War”. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said “There’s a reason I recommended T.R. Fehrenbach’s book...that we all pull it out and read it one more time.”
Although he served as a U.S. Army officer during the Korean War, his own service is not mentioned in the book. Fehrenbach also wrote for Esquire, The Atlantic, The Saturday Evening Post, and The New Republic. He wrote popular histories of Texas, Mexico, and the Comanche people. For almost 30 years, he wrote a weekly column on Sundays for the San Antonio Express-News. On August 23, 2013, T.R. Fehrenbach announced that he would retire from writing columns because of declining health. T.R. Fehrenbach died of a congenital heart defect at Northeast Baptist Hospital in San Antonio on December 1, 2013.

Selected bibliography

Sources for book publication data: United States Library of Congress, Amazon.com.

T. R. Fehrenbach Award

The Texas Historical Commission gives this award to recognize books about Texas history and pre-history. The award is given annually.