The Light Shines from the West

“When America’s early history was written, the West was ignored. Most of the West was either under France or Mexico or unknown. After the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican War, many historians still overlooked the West while many Americans were migrating there for adventure, seeking fortune or to breathe. Robert Baron masterfully corrects this neglect in The Light Shines from the West. He weaves the history of the First Peoples and the role women, politics, migration, and the economy have played in this dynamic, vital half of our country. A MUST read!”

Patricia Schroeder

Former Congresswoman, Colorado 1(1973-1997)

Former CEO Association of American Publishers (1997-2008)

“I’ve just finished the reading the galley of Bob Baron’s book, The Light Shines from the West: A Western Perspective on the Growth of America. I wish this important and magnificent book had existed sixty years ago when I first arrived in the west. Although I have always been interested in cultural history, I had not come across a book about western region’s unique history and influence on American thought that Baron’s book provides. It is the insightful overview that I had long hoped to find. Segments of it were awesome, wonderful surprises; especially astonishing is the chapter, “Women the West”. I predict the book will be popular and have a very strong positive affect over time.

Huey D. Johnson

Founder Resource Renewal Institute

“Robert Baron and his contributors have created a lively and fascinating book that explores the centrality of the West in the intellectual, cultural, and political life of the nation. Beyond creating the physical attributes of the United States, the exploration and settlement of the West has infused our collective imagination, and helped define what it means to be American.”

James David Moran

Vice President for Programs and Outreach

American Antiquarian Society

“At last!  A book that puts the American West into its rightful place in American history and culture.”

Dick Lamm

Former Governor of Colorado

Author Brave New World of Health Care

“The Light Shines from the West paints the wonderfully complex, historic story of the American West, by integrating social, economic, cultural, environmental and political perspectives into a fascinating and needed understanding of everyone’s West. I greatly enjoyed the read, and the various approaches to the American West.”

John L. Gray

Director Smithsonian American History Museum.

“The section on the ‘Women of the West’ – highlights how little recognition is given to these trail blazing women who were the back bone of the family and their communities. They developed many important institutions such as hospitals, civil rights organizations and churches. Hard work unimaginable to most people today was the unifying experience for women in the vast open spaces of the American West. As a result there is a formidable list of firsts – such as first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, and first woman in space Sally Rice. The unifying strength of all the women who lived in the American West was fierce fortitude and independence of spirit augmented by a back drop of immense possibility. They were indeed trail blazers.”

Lee Everding

Director Denver Eclectics

“The Light Shines from the West is one of the most interesting and thorough accounts of the westward development of the American nation that it has ever been my pleasure to read. With clear, well documented, and often poetic prose it tells not only the well-known part of this epic story but also the small, significant personal stories that are usually neglected. It is a history book that is as fascinating as a well-constructed novel. While it's strong throughout, as a person of native ancestry I found the third chapter on Native Americans written by Daniel Wildcat particularly gratifying. I believe it to be the best summary of what Western expansion really meant-- and still means -- to the original people of this continent. I hope this book will find its way not only into every library but also into our high school and college classrooms. There has never been a time in our history when a book such as this has been more needed.”

--Dr. Joseph Bruchac

Author of Our Stories Remember

“A must read for anyone interested in understanding the enduring impact of the west on the American experience ,The Light Shines form the West: A Western Perspective on the Growth of America by Robert C. Baron is an intelligent, comprehensive, interpretive collection of the numerous diversely penetrating influences of the region on the history and future of the United States. It is destined to become major source material about the American west and our country in general.”

Bobby Bridger

songwriter, playwright

Author of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull: Inventing the Wild West

“The breathtaking landscape of the North American West is so powerful that is it has led to the development of a unique human culture that transcends national boundaries and is deeply attached to place. The fascinating essays in this volume shine a light of understanding on the West and the people, both indigenous and immigrant, who have called it home for a long time.”

Harvey Locke

Founder Yellowstone to Yukon Coalition

Co-Founder Nature Needs Half Movement

“The Light Shines from the West offers a multi-authored overview of the history of the United States from the perspective of the West. Its publication coincides with renewed academic interest in national history from a western perspective but this book offers a text for students and lay readers with a broad chronological span and a novel approach which will stimulate a very different appreciation of the American story.”

Andrew O’Shaunessey

Vice President Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Author of The Men Who Lost America

The Light Shines from the West presents western history like light through a prism, that casts western history, its people and events in a different way with different understanding.  Jefferson’s view of the potential of the west, while competing elements of Spanish French, English and Russian interests were growing at the same time, foreshadows the future of the United States with opportunity not seen through traditional studies of Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.

This prism view casts the western migrating people wanting to go west for farmland, gold, and new lives. Railroads are borne of the need for transportation drawn by a growth in the west to bring supplies and needed resources, both material and human. It speaks to the different view of women’s work and roles in settling the west versus their counterparts whom they left behind in the east. This prism views the Native American Indians as First People, and the white man as the immigrant changing and abandoning their traditions and ways of life.

This prism shines a different light on women’s rights emerging in the west, political thought and the country’s economic future being influenced by the hardy people who dared to take on new challenges. Through the prism we see our western history as a fundamental element of the future of this country.

Ed Nichols

Former CEO History Colorado

State Historic Preservation Office

“At a time when the President is withdrawing protection from two Utah National Monuments including sacred tribal sites and Congress is turning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over for unnecessary oil exploitation, The Light Shines from the West: A Western Perspective on the Growth of America reminds us of the unique legacy of the American West and its people.” 

Larry J. Schweiger

Former President National Wildlife Federation

Author Last Chance