Now in paperback is this award winning history of religious conflict in early America. Hallwas and Launius have compiled and written one of the most balanced and thorough accounts yet of the events and circumstances that led to the forced Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois in the 1840s. They present an extensive selection of historical documents (a number of which have not been published previously) written by participants and contemporary observers and introduce them with probing discussions of the causes that underlay the conflict. Of particular concern to them are the role of contesting cultural myths and the relationship of events and attitudes in Illinois to the larger frontier and national scene.
Cultures in Conflict offers students of history an invaluable source of documents regarding the history of the Mormon presence in Illinois. Few local histories are so academically sound. -- Illinois Times, December 21-27, 1995
The organization of [this] book is innovative and excellent. The introductions are lucid and consistently provocative. Given the controversial nature of their thesis, the authors wisely anchor their argument in voices of the time -- Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 1996
From the Publisher
In 1996, Cultures in Conflict received the Mormon History Association's Best Documentary Edition Award and the John Whitmer Historical Association's Best Book Award.
Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Between 1990 and 2002 he served as chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A graduate of Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, he received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1982 and worked as a civilian historian with the United States Air Force until 1990.
He has written or edited more than twenty books on aerospace history, among others including "Smithsonian Atlas of Space Exploration" (HarperCollins, 2009); "Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); "Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars" (Smithsonian Books, 2003; 2nd ed. 2009), which received the AIAA's history manuscript prize; "Flight: A Celebration of 100 Years in Art and Literature" (Welcome Books, 2003); "Reconsidering a Century of Flight" (University of North Carolina Press, 2003); "To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles" (University Press of Kentucky, 2002); "Imagining Space: Achievements, Possibilities, Projections, 1950-2050" (Chronicle Books, 2001); "Innovation and the Development of Flight" (Texas A&M University Press, 1999); "NASA & the Exploration of Space" (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1998); "Frontiers of Space Exploration" (Greenwood Press, 1998, rev. ed. 2004); "Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership" (University of Illinois Press, 1997); and "NASA: A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program" (Krieger Publishing Co., 1994, rev. ed. 2001).
He is also involved in other historical studies. His book, "Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet" (University of Illinois Press, 1988), won the prestigious Evans Award for biography. He has also published "Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History" (University of Illinois Press, 1994), "Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois" (Utah State University Press, 1995), "Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History" (University of Illinois Press, 1996), and several others. "Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate" (University of Missouri Press, 1997), discusses the role of the vital center in American politics during the Mexican-American War and sectional conflict.
More recently he has been studying the relationship of baseball to American culture and has published, "Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman" (Walker and Co., 2010), and "Seasons in the Sun: The Story of Big League Baseball in Missouri" (University of Missouri Press, 2002).
He served as a consultant to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 and presented the prestigious Harmon Memorial Lecture in Military History at the United States Air Force Academy in 2006. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the American Astronautical Society, and Associate Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is frequently consulted by the electronic and print media for his views on space issues, and has been a guest commentator on National Public Radio and all the major television networks.
This review is from: Cultures in Conflict; A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (Paperback)
I went to Nauvoo in 2002 with my son. I am not Mormon but just interested in history. This is a facinating book after having been there to see it myself. Now I want to go back to see the stuff that I missed, and go to Carthage to see the jail with the bullet hole in the door. The thing I like the best about this story is that the bad guys finally got what they deserved! We should have this justice now!
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