People had a way of seeing the West from the earliest days. They told how and why the West was being won. Still there were objections. Texas novelist Larry McMurtry wrote a review grousing about the lack of an entry for chili. Others, however, have weighed in about the book's larger contributions to the body of knowledge about the West.
History has a peculiar power, in that it purports to tell the truth.
People are hungry for that, especially in this age of TV and the Internet. More significantly, the New Encyclopedia incorporates recent scholarship on the contributions of women, minorities, and native people while building on previous historians' groundwork. It's in touch with not only the most recent work, but grand older traditions. Perhaps the only subject to bring higher praise than Lamar's book is Lamar himself. Many are good people.