The Dawning Place: The Building of a Temple, the Forging of the North American Baha'I Community [Paperback]

Bruce W. Whitmore (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bahai Pub Trust (March 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877431930
• ISBN-13: 978-0877431930
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,128,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Personal glimpses of a majestic vision..., November 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dawning Place: The Building of a Temple, the Forging of the North American Baha'I Community (Paperback)

As an armchair anthropologist I am drawn to books about people and communities. In this century a tiny but indominable community of individuals set out to build a structure that would be a gift to people of all Faiths throughout the world. With the blessing of their leader, Abdu'l-Baha, the American Baha'i community (followers of their Founder Baha'u'llah) made a commitment to undertake this task in the conservative North Shore community of Wilmette, Illinois in 1911.

Over the next 50 (!) years their dedication to this task has been chronicled by author Bruce Whitmore with grand historical overview and vignettes of personal sacrifice and victory. His intimate relaxed presentation flows through pages of photos, from preliminary architectural drawings, to the dedication celebration in 1953. Names become faces and drawings become concrete and glass and steel. Young devotees become responsible parents and their children's lives unfold as the chronicle traverses the first half of the 20th century. One vignette tells of a gold coin donated at the very beginning of the effort in 1908 which was lovingly returned to the donor all those years later just before the dedication. We follow the ill-fated architect Luis Bourgoise from his earlier attempts to orchestrate his vision of universal harmony to his untimely death just as the construction was about to begin. Running concurrently, we see obliquely the Baha'i world community experience its victories and setbacks in its attempts to become established as a recognizable entity among the other great religions of the world.

Though it has been a few years since I first read this book, the sweetness of this story lingers. It is a truly entertaining and inspiring peek into the inner workings of this emerging global community.