The Rise of Houston As a Global City

Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the nation. It has long been regarded as the “Energy Capital of the World.” Trademarked boasts frequently refer to the “world’s busiest commercial seaport,” “world’s biggest medical complex,” and “world’s control center for space exploration.” Houston has been home to some of the most politically powerful people in the world, some of the most influential businesspeople, and some of the most dazzling social figures.

In The Rise of Houston as Global City, Geoffrey Scott Connor follows the ascent of Houston from its founding by the Allen Brothers in 1836 as a fledging port to its growth into a global center of international trade. Such rapid expansion began in earnest when, in 1901, a hurricane devastated Galveston and the Spindletop oil gusher changed Houston’s fortune forever. The city absorbed much of Galveston’s international trade even as it developed into the world’s largest site for refineries and chemical plants.

Connor also shows how local wealth and political power facilitated the establishment of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Hospital during World War II and its transformation into the world’s largest medical complex and a leading center of advanced medicine. The continually expanding Texas Medical Center treated the world’s elite while also developing new medical technologies for the general public. Having thus established itself as a center of technology, Houston again used its wealth and power to draw the Manned Spaceflight Center to the city in 1961. Space science depended on and attracted massive private sector investment, setting the stage for yet another technological expansion in the age of computing. The Rise of Houston as a Global City will contribute to the growing corpus of studies focused on the history of a major city that, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, blends “boots and oil” with technology, innovation, and ambition.