Polygamy On The Pedernales

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Polygamy on the Pedernales

Author : Melvin C Johnson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Polygamy on the Pedernales by : Melvin C Johnson

Download or read book Polygamy on the Pedernales written by Melvin C Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of Joseph Smith Jr.’s murder in 1844, his following splintered, and some allied themselves with a maverick Mormon apostle, Lyman Wight. Sometimes called the "Wild Ram of Texas," Wight took his splinter group to frontier Texas, a destination to which Smith, before his murder, had considered moving his followers, who were increasingly unwelcome in the Midwest. He had instructed Wight to take a small band of church members from Wisconsin to establish a Texas colony that would prepare the ground for a mass migration of the membership. Having received these orders directly from Smith, Wight did not believe the former’s death changed their significance. If anything, he felt all the more responsible for fulfilling what he believed was a prophet’s intention. Antagonism with Brigham Young and the other LDS apostles grew, and Wight refused to join with them or move to their new gathering place in Utah. He and his small congregation pursued their own destiny, becoming an interesting component of the Texas frontier, where they had a significant economic role as early millers and cowboys and a political one as a buffer with the Comanches. Their social and religious practices shared many of the idiosyncracies of the larger Mormon sect, including polygamous marriages, temple rites, and economic cooperatives. Wight was a charismatic but authoritarian and increasingly odd figure, in part because of chemical addictions. His death in 1858 while leading his shrinking number of followers on yet one more migration brought an effective end to his independent church.

Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Volume 2: History

Author : Brian C. Hales
Publisher : Greg Kofford Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 603 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Volume 2: History by : Brian C. Hales

Download or read book Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, Volume 2: History written by Brian C. Hales and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few American religious figures have stirred more passion among adherents and antagonists than Joseph Smith. Born in 1805 and silenced thirty-nine years later by assassins’ bullets, he dictated more than one-hundred revelations, published books of new scripture, built a temple, organized several new cities, and became the proclaimed prophet to tens of thousands during his abbreviated life. Among his many novel teachings and practices, none is more controversial than plural marriage, a restoration of the Old Testament practice that he accepted as part of his divinely appointed mission. Joseph Smith taught his polygamy doctrines only in secret and dictated a revelation in July 1843 authorizing its practice (now LDS D&C 132) that was never published during his lifetime. Although rumors and exposés multiplied, it was not until 1852 that Mormons in Brigham Young’s Utah took a public stand. By then, thousands of Mormons were engaged in the practice that was seen as essential to salvation. Victorian America saw plural marriage as immoral and Joseph Smith as acting on libido. However, the private writings of Nauvoo participants and other polygamy insiders tell another, more complex and nuanced story. Many of these accounts have never been published. Others have been printed sporadically in unrelated publications. Drawing on every known historical account, whether by supporters or opponents, Volumes 1 and 2 take a fresh look at the chronology and development of Mormon polygamy, including the difficult conundrums of the Fannie Alger relationship, polyandry, the “angel with a sword” accounts, Emma Smith’s poignant response, and the possibility of Joseph Smith offspring by his plural wives. Among the most intriguing are the newly available Andrew Jenson papers containing not only the often-quoted statements by surviving plural wives but also Jenson’s own private research, conducted in the late nineteenth century. Telling the story of Joseph Smith’s polygamy from the records of those who knew him best, augmented by those who observed him from a distance, may have produced the most useful view of all.

Polygamy on the Pedernales

Author : Melvin C Johnson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Polygamy on the Pedernales by : Melvin C Johnson

The Reed Smoot Hearings

Author : Michael Harold Paulos
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1646421175
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (464 download)

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Book Synopsis The Reed Smoot Hearings by : Michael Harold Paulos

Download or read book The Reed Smoot Hearings written by Michael Harold Paulos and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the hearings that followed Mormon apostle Reed Smoot’s 1903 election to the US Senate and the subsequent protests and petitioning efforts from mainstream Christian ministries disputing Smoot’s right to serve as a senator. Exploring how religious and political institutions adapted and shapeshifted in response to larger societal and ecclesiastical trends, The Reed Smoot Hearings offers a broader exploration of secularism during the Progressive Era and puts the Smoot hearings in context with the ongoing debate about the constitutional definition of marriage. The work adds new insights into the role religion and the secular played in the shaping of US political institutions and national policies. Chapters also look at the history of anti-polygamy laws, the persistence of post-1890 plural marriage, the continuation of anti-Mormon sentiment, the intimacies and challenges of religious privatization, the dynamic of federal power on religious reform, and the more intimate role individuals played in effecting these institutional and national developments. The Smoot hearings stand as an important case study that highlights the paradoxical history of religious liberty in America and the principles of exclusion and coercion that history is predicated on. Framed within a liberal Protestant sensibility, these principles of secular progress mapped out the relationship of religion and the nation-state for the new modern century. The Reed Smoot Hearings will be of significant interest to students and scholars of Mormon, western, American, and religious history. Publication supported, in part, by Gonzaba Medical Group. Contributors: Gary James Bergera, John Brumbaugh, Kenneth L. Cannon II, Byron W. Daynes, Kathryn M. Daynes, Kathryn Smoot Egan, D. Michael Quinn

The Chickasaw Rancher

Author : Neil R. Johnson
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786255995
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (862 download)

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Book Synopsis The Chickasaw Rancher by : Neil R. Johnson

Download or read book The Chickasaw Rancher written by Neil R. Johnson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1961, Neil R. Johnson’s The Chickasaw Rancher tells the story of Montford T. Johnson and the first white settlement of Oklahoma. Abandoned by his father after his mother’s death and then left on his own following his grandmother’s passing in 1868, Johnson became the owner of a piece of land in the northern part of the Chickasaw Nation in what is now Oklahoma. The Chickasaw Rancher follows Montford T. Johnson’s family and friends for the next thirty-two years. Neil R. Johnson describes the work, the ranch parties, cattle rustling, gun fights, tornadoes, the run of 1889, the hard deaths of many along the way, and the rise, fall, and revival of the Chickasaw Nation.—Print Ed.

Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley

Author : Melvin C. Johnson
Publisher : Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated
ISBN 13 : 9781589587656
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (876 download)

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Book Synopsis Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley by : Melvin C. Johnson

Download or read book Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley written by Melvin C. Johnson and published by Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Pierce Hawley's forty-year odyssey in the American interior was in pursuit of his dream to find a true Mormon restoration faith. The story describes John Pierce Hawley and Mormonism, particularly the Latter-day Saints and the Wightites, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

A Voice in the Wilderness

Author : Reid Neilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190867841
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis A Voice in the Wilderness by : Reid Neilson

Download or read book A Voice in the Wilderness written by Reid Neilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April 1888, Andrew Jenson, Danish immigrant and convert to the Mormon faith, received an unexpected invitation from church leaders to speak at their general conference. Jenson was an outsider to this conference tradition, a layman whose only standing before the main body of Latter-day Saints came from a contracted position with the Church Historian's Office. Forty-two years later, in April 1930, Jenson offered his twenty-eighth and final general conference sermon. He had become the voice of institutional record keeping in his over forty-year career as an Assistant Church Historian. His sermons demonstrated the growth and expansion of the Mormon general conference tradition in the twentieth century, as they placed the Latter-day Saint story front and center for church members to learn from and celebrate. In addition, Jenson urged conference goers to keep better personal and institutional records and believed he was often the solitary advocate for church record keeping and historical preservation. A Voice in the Wilderness presents all twenty-eight of Andrew Jenson's general conference sermons, with introductions and annotations that set them within their historical and religious contexts. His speeches capture a unique period in Mormon history, one of institutional change, accommodation, and growth. This study of Jenson's sermons uncovers the richness and diversity that thrives just beneath the surface of official ecclesiastical discourse.

The Whites Want Every Thing

Author : Will Bagley
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806165499
Total Pages : 704 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whites Want Every Thing by : Will Bagley

Download or read book The Whites Want Every Thing written by Will Bagley and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Indians have been at the center of Mormon doctrine from its very beginnings, recast as among the Children of Israel and thereby destined to play a central role in the earthly triumph of the new faith. The settling of the Mormons among the Indians of what became Utah Territory presented a different story—a story that, as told by the settlers, robbed the Native people of their voices along with their homelands. The Whites Want Everything restores those Native voices to the history of colonization of the American Southwest. Collecting a wealth of documents from varied and often-suppressed sources, this volume allows both Indians and Latter-day Saints to tell their stories as they struggled to determine who would control the land and resources of North America’s Great Basin. Journals, letters, reports, and recollections, many from firsthand participants, reveal the complexities of cooperation and conflict between Native Americans and Mormon Anglo-Americans. The documents offer extraordinarily wide-ranging and detailed perspectives on the fight to survive in one of Earth’s most challenging environments. Editor Will Bagley, a scholar of Mormon history and the American West, provides cultural, historical, and environmental context for the documents, which include the Indians’ own eloquent voices as preserved in the region’s remarkable archives. In all these accounts, we see how some of western North America’s most colorful historical characters recorded their adventures and regarded their painful stories—and how, in doing so, they bring light to a dark chapter in American history. Ranging from initial encounters through the 1850–1872 war against Native tribes, to recitations of Mormon millennial dreams continued long after Brigham Young’s death in 1877, this is history as it happened, not as some might wish it had, at long last returning the original owners of today’s Utah, Nevada, and Colorado to their rightful place in history.

At Sword's Point, Part 1

Author : William P. MacKinnon
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806157259
Total Pages : 725 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis At Sword's Point, Part 1 by : William P. MacKinnon

Download or read book At Sword's Point, Part 1 written by William P. MacKinnon and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Utah War of 1857–58, the unprecedented armed confrontation between Mormon Utah Territory and the U.S. government, was the most extensive American military action between the Mexican and Civil wars. At Sword’s Point presents in two volumes the first in-depth narrative and documentary history of that extraordinary conflict. William P. MacKinnon offers a lively narrative linking firsthand accounts—most previously unknown—from soldiers and civilians on both sides. This first volume traces the war’s causes and preliminary events, including President Buchanan’s decision to replace Brigham Young as governor of Utah and restore federal authority through a large army expedition. Also examined are Young’s defensive-aggressive reactions, the onset of armed hostilities, and Thomas L. Kane’s departure at the end of 1857 for his now-famous mediating mission to Utah. MacKinnon provides a balanced, comprehensive account, based on a half century of research and a wealth of carefully selected new material. Women’s voices from both sides enrich this colorful story. At Sword’s Point presents the Utah War as a sprawling confrontation with regional and international as well as territorial impact. As a nonpartisan definitive work, it eclipses previous studies of this remarkably bloody turning point in western, military, and Mormon history.

This Abominable Slavery

Author : W. Paul Reeve
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197765041
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (977 download)

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Book Synopsis This Abominable Slavery by : W. Paul Reeve

Download or read book This Abominable Slavery written by W. Paul Reeve and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-10-04 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 22, 1847, a group of about forty refugees entered the Salt Lake Valley. Among them were three enslaved men, two of whom shared the religion, Mormonism, that had caused them to flee. The valley was also home to members of the Ute tribe, who would sometimes barter captive women and children to Spanish colonizers. Thus, the question of whether the Latter-day Saints would accept or reject slavery in their new Zion confronted them on the day they first arrived. Five years later, after Utah had become an American territory, its legislature was prodded to take up the question then roiling the nation: would they be slave or free? George D. Watt, the official reporter for the 1852 legislative session, reported debates and speeches in Pitman shorthand. They remained in their original format, virtually untouched, for more than one hundred and fifty years, until LaJean Purcell Carruth transcribed them. In this eye-opening volume, Carruth, Christopher Rich, and W. Paul Reeve draw extensively on these new sources to chronicle the session, during which the legislature passed two important statutes: one that legally transformed African American slaves into "servants" but did not pass the condition of servitude on to their children and another that authorized twenty-year indentures for enslaved Native Americans. This Abominable Slavery places these debates within the context of the nation's growing sectional divide and contextualizes the meaning of these laws in the lives of Black enslaved people and Native American indentured servants. In doing so, it sheds new light on race, religion, slavery, and unfree labor in the antebellum period.

Friedrichsburg

Author : Friedrich Armand Strubberg
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292742916
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Friedrichsburg by : Friedrich Armand Strubberg

Download or read book Friedrichsburg written by Friedrich Armand Strubberg and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded in 1846, Fredericksburg, Texas, was established by German noblemen who enticed thousands of their compatriots to flee their overcrowded homeland with the prospect of free land in a place that was portrayed as a new Garden of Eden. Few of the settlers, however, were prepared for the harsh realities of the Texas frontier or for confrontation with the Comanche Indians. In his 1867 novel Friedrichsburg, Friedrich Armand Strubberg, a.k.a. Dr. Schubbert, interwove his personal story with a fictional romance to capture the flavor of Fredericksburg, Texas, during its founding years when he served as the first colonial director. Now available in a contemporary translation, Friedrichsburg brings to life the little-known aspects of life among these determined but often ill-equipped settlers who sought to make the transition to a new home and community on the Texas frontier. Opening just as a peace treaty is being negotiated between the German newcomers and the Comanches, the novel describes the unlikely survival of these fledgling homesteads and provides evidence that support from the Delaware Indians, as well as the nearby Mormon community of Zodiac, was key to the Germans’ success. Along the way, Strubberg also depicts the laying of the cornerstone to the Vereinskirche, the blazing of an important new road to Austin, exciting hunting scenes, and an admirable spirit of cultural cohesion and determined resilience. In so doing, he resurrects a fascinating lost world.

Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration

Author : Cheryl L. Bruno
Publisher : Greg Kofford Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration by : Cheryl L. Bruno

Download or read book Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration written by Cheryl L. Bruno and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While no one thing can entirely explain the rise of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the historical influence of Freemasonry on this religious tradition cannot be refuted. Those who study Mormonism have been aware of the impact that Freemasonry had on the founding prophet Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo period, but his involvement in Freemasonry was arguably earlier and broader than many modern historians have admitted. The fact that the most obvious vestiges of Freemasonry are evident only in the more esoteric aspects of the Mormon faith has made it difficult to recognize, let alone fully grasp, the relevant issues. Even those with both Mormon and Masonic experience may not be versed in the nineteenth-century versions of Masonry's rituals, legends, and practices. Without this specialized background, it is easy to miss the Masonic significance of numerous early Mormon ordinances, scripture, and doctrines. Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration offers a fresh perspective on the Masonic thread present in Mormonism from its earliest days. Smith's firsthand knowledge of and experience with both Masonry and anti-Masonic currents contributed to the theology, structure, culture, tradition, history, literature, and ritual of the religion he founded.

Speaking of Jews

Author : Lila Corwin Berman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520943704
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (437 download)

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Book Synopsis Speaking of Jews by : Lila Corwin Berman

Download or read book Speaking of Jews written by Lila Corwin Berman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-03-10 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lila Corwin Berman asks why, over the course of the twentieth century, American Jews became increasingly fascinated, even obsessed, with explaining themselves to their non-Jewish neighbors. What she discovers is that language itself became a crucial tool for Jewish group survival and integration into American life. Berman investigates a wide range of sources—radio and television broadcasts, bestselling books, sociological studies, debates about Jewish marriage and intermarriage, Jewish missionary work, and more—to reveal how rabbis, intellectuals, and others created a seemingly endless array of explanations about why Jews were indispensable to American life. Even as the content of these explanations developed and shifted over time, the very project of self-explanation would become a core element of Jewishness in the twentieth century.

Single Star of the West

Author : Kenneth W. Howell
Publisher : University of North Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1574416715
Total Pages : 547 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Single Star of the West by : Kenneth W. Howell

Download or read book Single Star of the West written by Kenneth W. Howell and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Texas’s experience as a republic make it unique among the other states? In many ways, Texas was an “accidental republic” for nearly ten years, until Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States after winning independence from Mexico. Single Star of the West chronicles Texas’s efforts to maneuver through the pitfalls and hardships of creating and maintaining the “accidental republic.” The volume begins with the Texas Revolution and examines whether or not a true Texas identity emerged during the Republic era. Next, several contributors discuss how the Republic was defended by its army, navy, and the Texas Rangers. Individual chapters focus on the early founders of Texas—Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Anson Jones—who were all exceptional men, but like all men, suffered from their own share of fears and faults. Texas’s efforts at diplomacy, and persistence and transformation in its economy, also receive careful analysis. Finally, social and cultural aspects of the Texas Republic receive coverage, with discussions of women, American Indians, African Americans, Tejanos, and religion. The contributors also focus on the extent that conditions in the republic attracted political and economic opportunists, some of whom achieved a remarkable degree of success. Single Star of the West also highlights how the Texas Republic was established on American political ideology. With the majority of the white settlers coming from the United States, this will not surprise many scholars of the era. In some cases, the Texans successfully adopted American political and economic ideology to their needs, while other times they failed miserably.

William B. Smith

Author : Kyle R. Walker
Publisher : Greg Kofford Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 654 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis William B. Smith by : Kyle R. Walker

Download or read book William B. Smith written by Kyle R. Walker and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2015-06-04 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2016 Best Biography Award, John Whitmer Historical Association Younger brother of Joseph Smith, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Church Patriarch for a time, William Smith had tumultuous yet devoted relationships with Joseph, his fellow members of the Twelve, and the LDS and RLDS (Community of Christ) churches. Walker's imposing biography examines not only William's complex life in detail, but also sheds additional light on the family dynamics of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, as well as the turbulent intersections between the LDS and RLDS churches. William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet is a vital contribution to Mormon history in both the LDS and RLDS traditions.

Democracy Incorporated

Author : Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691178488
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy Incorporated by : Sheldon S. Wolin

Download or read book Democracy Incorporated written by Sheldon S. Wolin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.

Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel

Author : Reid L. Neilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190600918
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel by : Reid L. Neilson

Download or read book Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel written by Reid L. Neilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mormons had just arrived in Utah after their 1,300-mile exodus across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains. Food was scarce, the climate shocking in its extremes, and local Indian bands uneasy. Despite the challenges, Brigham Young and his counselors in the First Presidency sent church members out to establish footholds throughout the Great Basin. But the church leaders felt they had a commission to do more than simply establish Zion in the wilderness; they had to invite the nations to come up to "the mountain of the Lord's house." In these critical early years, when survival in Utah was precarious, missionaries were sent to every inhabited continent. The 14 general epistles, sent out from the First Presidency from 1849 to 1856, provide invaluable perspectives on the events of Mormon history as they unfolded during this complex transitional time. Woven into each epistle are missionary calls and reports from the field, giving the Mormons a glimpse of the wider world far beyond their isolated home. At times, the epistles are a surprising mixture of soaring doctrinal expositions and mundane lists of items needed in Salt Lake City, such as shoe leather and nails. Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel collects the 14 general epistles, with introductions that provide historical, religious, and environmental contexts for the letters, including how they fit into the Christian epistolary tradition by which they were inspired.