“An exceptionally well-researched history, Wrobel’s book offers enjoyable reading about the numerous and varied travel writers who shaped our idea of the West.”—True West
“(Wrobel) argues that travel writings contributed valuable insight into the West and U.S. exceptionalism—especially in the absence of contemporary scholarship. . . . (H)is book reacquaints historians with an important source of information. Highly recommended.”—Choice
“Wrobel demonstrates that a global perspective, in the right hands, is a powerful tool.”—Journal of American History
“Wrobel upends expectations in his tour of western travel writing. . . . He sounds a welcome alarm not only to rethink the chronology of Manifest Destiny and globalism in the American West but to think more deeply and broadly about travel itself.”—Western Historical Quarterly
“Offers a new approach to examining the enduring appeal of the West. It is meticulously researched, sweeping in its geographic scope, and very well written—so well written, in fact, that amateur and professional historians alike can read and enjoy it.”—Journal of Arizona History
“(Wrobel) provides a compelling argument about how travel narratives shaped national and global understandings of the American West. . . . This book provides a compelling journey for the scholar, student, and armchair traveler interested in the American West and its global connections.”—The Chronicles of Oklahoma
“Elegantly written and fully persuasive in getting us to view the West in new ways.”—Montana the Magazine of Western History
“A well-written, multilayered study that contextualizes travel adventures written about the American West with narratives about other far-flung regions of the world. . . . Global West, American Frontier is a good read for both serious students of the American West and casual readers.”—Utah Historical Quarterly
“An insightful addition to the historiography of the American West.”—Pacific Northwest Quarterly
“In this deeply researched study, Wrobel shows how the legacies of ‘manifest destiny’ continue even as he contests monologic readings of the West. Using travel books to explore the rhetoric about the West, Wrobel takes readers on journeys—adventures—into the past to show us who we thought we were and how those visions continue to shape the present.”—Western American Literature
“ Global West, American Frontier demonstrates why we need to know history. Understanding nineteenth-century travel narratives, guidebooks, and other ‘mythologies’ gives us a solid context for grasping our own issues today. This book is written with clarity and savvy.”—Ron Primeau, author of Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway
“A provocative, revealing book overflowing with new information and fresh insights. Illustrates once again why Wrobel is at the top of the list of cultural-intellectual historians interpreting the American West.”—Richard W. Etulain, author of Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West
“Historians of the American West, myself included, have a bad habit of looking only at travel accounts that provide fodder for the mill of a mythical West. David Wrobel has had the very good sense to find travelers who wrote about the American West from a global perspective rather than as an ‘exception’ and source of ‘exceptionalism.’ The result is a fascinating and extremely important book by one of the best Western historians of this generation.”—David M. Emmons, University of Montana
"In this perceptive, splendidly researched book David Wrobel upends enduring impressions of the army of travelers who wrote about the American West. Rather than dewey-eyed innocents caught up in the mythic West, many were surprisingly shrewd observers who understood that the place they saw emerging, as well as their own travels, were part of a global story of exploration and empire-building. Full of intriguing characters and revelatory moments, it is itself an eye-opening trip into the well-traveled West."—Elliott West, author of The Way to the West
