Keywords
uni-dimensional picture, Nauvoo community, Jacksonian American democratic context
Abstract
Benjamin Park recently wrote a substantive revisionist history of Nauvoo, Illinois, the one-time Church capital under the leadership of Joseph Smith, Jr. This article serves as a critical review of Park’s work. Congratulating the author for placing this well-known Latter-day Saint story within the larger Jacksonian American democratic context, as well as for utilizing a great many primary sources hardly used before, Richard Bennett in this critical review assesses both the strengths and the weaknesses of this important new book. While complimenting Park for his significant contributions on politics, women, and race in Nauvoo, Bennett nonetheless finds much to criticize in what he sees as a unidimensional, highly political study that disregards many previous studies of Nauvoo and fails to address many other critically important facets of the city’s life and history from its inception in 1839 until the Saints’ departure in 1846.
Recommended Citation
Bennett, Richard E.
(2020)
"A Uni-Dimensional Picture of a Multi-Faceted Nauvoo Community,"
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: Vol. 40, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/interpreter/vol40/iss1/4
