Customer Reviews

Nauvoo: KINGDOM ON THE MISSISSIPPI

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Very balanced book on the Mormons in Nauvoo. Gives a more complete view of the persecution, and reasons thereof, that members of the LDS faith went through in Nauvoo. From their political involvement to land speculation to polygamy to everything in between. Covers everything without an overly rosy or cynical view. The best book on the period that I've read, whether written by a member of the LDS church or not.

Nearly forty years have passed since this book was first published, and it is still the best synthesis of this complex subject. Robert Bruce Flanders' 1965 classic study of Nauvoo, incomplete as it is because of its intentional disregard of social and religious issues, opened an avenue of discussion that most others have been unwilling to follow since that time. Flanders said that he wrote of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, not as a religious leader but as a "man of affairs--planner, promoter, architect, entrepreneur, executive, politician, filibusterer--matters of which he was sometimes less sure than he was those of the spirit." He also wrote of Mormon Nauvoo as a western boom town and not as a religious "city on a hill." There is little of the reverence in Flanders' study that most other Mormon scholars have displayed in handling the subject; the sacred history approach has created a romanticized and superficial image of Nauvoo and the events that took place there.

As interpreted by Flanders, Nauvoo is largely a story of tragedy, both personally for Joseph Smith and collectively for the Mormons. For Flanders, the lofty visions that had led to the founding of the Latter Day Saint church descended into a secular quagmire of economics and politics because of internal flaws and external pressures on the banks of the Mississippi. Ultimately, the city failed and the church fractured.

Written in 1965, this book has since been the seminal work on the subject of Nauvoo. It contains 11 chapters on many aspects of the building up and eventual demise of the city of Nauvoo, with Joseph Smith predominating throughout its chapters.

Passages of note:

P.151: Plans were to build a shipping canal down the centre of Main St to be also used for driving mills. But this idea never eventuated due to the discovery of a stratum of limestone at the northern end of the street, thus making the plan impracticable. Instead, this became the quarry used for the Temple stone.

p.188: Commercial development on Mulholland St (on the "hill") past the Temple was overtaking Joseph Smith's plan for the commercial centre on the "flat" (Main St). The enmity from feuding with the promoters on the "hill" (Law, Higbee & Foster - publishers of the Nauvoo Expositor) led to his death. "The commercial character of Mulholland St has survived to the present, while that of Main St has entirely disappeared."

pp.200-201 Due to the slow progress of the Temple:
- Joseph Smith pronounces there will be no more General Conferences or baptisms for the dead until the Temple is completed. "For thus said the Lord!". The threat was not carried out - the font was ready for use the following month and conferences continued.
- A policy is announced that only those that contributed to the building of the Temple (tithing and/or labor) could attend. Hence the beginning of the current Temple Recommend...

p.245-247: Word of Wisdom initially enforced in Nauvoo, but quickly became ignored by leaders...until late century Utah.

p250-251: Times and Seasons originally on Water & Bain Streets, privately owned. Pressure came to give control of the business to the Church for control (the Twelve). Finally Joseph Smith receives a revelation for it to be sold to the Church.

The above are just a sample of what's contained in this book that I found worthy of note. No doubt the reader will discover their own favourite passages. Definitely a recommended read.