Nearly 250 people spent three hours at Casper College Thursday afternoon listening to a debate about and asking questions about, of all things, a book.

Many books are written, but few strike a nerve like Sheridan author Sam Western's slim volume about Wyoming history and economics, "Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming's Search for Its Soul."

The book has angered many in the state's agriculture industry and challenged some of the state's enduring images of itself.

As the focus of this year's Stroock Forum on Wyoming Lands and People, Western fended off sometimes barbed criticisms from business and agriculture officials, fielded questions from the audience at Roberts Commons, and played the foil for Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

The book is now in its fourth printing and its umpteenth dispute over its recounting of the state's mythology of a land of rugged individualists that confronts the reality of a cyclical, commodities-driven, boom-and-bust economy.

The mythology has exaggerated the roles of agriculture and minerals as means to sustain communities, and the result has been a welfare state that drives its youth away, according to the book and Western's Power Point presentation of charts and pithy quotes to prove his points.

For the most part, three panelists were not impressed.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said Wyoming is a unique place, its people may live far apart but they're willing to pitch in for community goals, and that agriculture is a serious industry that provides stability for the state.

While the per capita income of those in agriculture is low, the cost of living on a ranch - room and board, use of vehicles - is low, too, he said.

Tucker Fagan, chief executive officer of the Wyoming Business Council, rhetorically asked Western and the audience whether they were "in the arena" trying to expand and diversify the economy, or whether they were on the sidelines criticizing.

Olin Sims, a rancher from McFadden and president of the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, said his third-generation ranching family intends to have a fourth generation on its property.

Sims offered a detailed explanation of how ranching developed in Wyoming, asserted that all new wealth comes from natural resources, and that money generated by agriculture powerfully recirculates throughout the state's economy.

Western responded to Magagna by saying that all states consider themselves to be unique, that all rural areas have the values he talked about. He said that he wrote his book out of exasperation at the unwillingness of people to escape the fantasy about the real size of agriculture, which is about 2.5 percent of the gross state economy.

While the low cost of living may be fine for individual ranchers, they in effect "eat the net" of their production, which leaves little or no money for schools and other community needs, he said.

Fagan's message essentially implied that "no criticism is allowed," Western said. "I disagree."

Western sympathized with many of Sims' comments, but said all states started by developing their natural resources, but most didn't stay there.

Freudenthal complimented his friend Western, but only to a point, for writing the book and raising questions about Wyoming's past and the past's implications for the future.

"A little of it strikes close to the bone; I grew up in agriculture," said Freudenthal, who was raised on a ranch near Thermopolis. "Part of this book frankly … really irritates the hell out of me."

Part of that irritation stems from Western's analysis of demographic and economic trends since the middle of the 19th century, which Freudenthal said is incredibly accurate.

But issues about 19th century farming and ranching practices dodge the larger issue about what Wyoming needs to do now, he said. "What do you use your past for?"

Instead, Wyoming needs to ask what it wants to be, he said.

"I think our problem is a lack of confidence," Freudenthal said.

"We're quick to say what we don't want to be like," he said. So southwest Wyoming doesn't want to be like Salt Lake City, and Cheyenne doesn't want to look like the Front Range.

Change in Wyoming will be incremental, will take a lot of cooperation; will demand the will to be different; and will need gender wage parity to attract educated, professional women to join the work force, he said.

Over time, as Wyoming develops a vision for its future, Freudenthal said, "we're going to quit having these forums where we bitch, and we're going to get around to it."

Western expressed a similar sentiment earlier in the forum. He hopes his book ends Wyoming's long practice of waiting for change and instead serves as an impetus to get people to do something to reverse the state's loss of its young people and build sustainable communities.