"If Sam Western's The Spirit of 1889 ruffles some feathers, good. If it makes some see the state we all love from a different angle, and think about how we can make it look like our Founders envisioned . . . that's even better."--Cowboy State Daily

"An underappreciated driver of our country's political problems is Middle America's hard rightward turn. Western illustrates how the Dakota states abandoned their governmental priorities and how they can change their fortune."--Ross Benes, author of Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold

"Samuel Western upends our assumptions about the territories that received statehood in 1889. He suggests that rather than individual political entities, the new states constituted a region with a common--and distinctly progressive--political culture. Since the region is among the most conservative today, Western dares its residents to find a new path by embracing this history. For others, he reveals the mutability of political loyalties even as our own become increasingly fixed."--Catherine McNicol Stock, author of Nuclear Country: The Origins of the Rural New Right

"The Spirit of 1889 is an insightful look at the history of the High Plains and Northern Rocky Mountain states. It helps explain our current economic and political divisions and provides thoughtful solutions for the region. Samuel Western's book is an important discussion of topics relevant in both the late 1800s and today, from corporate power and the role of government to inequality."--Jeff Bremer, author of A New History of Iowa

"Rural populations in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota have felt alienated as urban areas enjoy population growth and economic health. Samuel Western suggests that over-reliance on commodity economies (timber, mining, agriculture) has caused white populations (especially men) to feel they are excluded from power and prosperity. Consequently, these states that joined the union in 1889 have become bulwarks of conservatism. Western argues that a new approach to innovation and change could result in the states reclaiming their progressive heritages."--Katherine Aiken, author of Idaho's Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of a Great Mining Company, 1885-1981

"One thinks of the "89er" states (North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho--so called because all five wrote their constitutions in 1889), as conservative bastions, but as Samuel Western points out, those constitutions were all quite liberal. All five states are strongly commodity-based: crops, animals, timber, mining. This study, based on both research and interviews, is thoughtful, well-documented, and readable."--Jim Hoy, author of Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains