Proclamation to the People: 19th Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier [Hardcover]

Laurie F Maffly-Kipp (Editor), Reid L Neilson (Editor), R Lanier Britsch (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2008

Seven years before leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) set foot in Utah Territory, they had already breached the Pacific basin by arriving in Australia by 1840.

Scholars have increasingly analyzed the Pacific world (the west coast of the U.S. and South America, the Pacific islands from Hawaii to Tahiti, and from Japan to New Zealand and Australia) as a distinctive region with a unified history. While religion has played an important role in this history, giving rise to a literature on Protestant and Catholic missions in the region, the study of the LDS Church’s expansion into the Pacific has remained largely outside of the bounds of non-LDS study. The Pacific basin has been a crucial part of LDS Church history for nearly the entire lifespan of Mormonism.

This volume brings the Pacific history of the LDS Church into focus in two ways. First, it explores the range and meanings of the church's settlement and movement. Second, it suggests contrasts, linkages, and parallels between LDS and other missionary activities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The volume as a whole is well thought out and is a good selection of theimportant articles on Mormons in the Pacific."—Greg Gubler, professor and university archivist emeritus, Brigham Young University, Hawaii

"All of [the essays] give us a deeper and more complex picture of Mormonism as a tradition developing in relationship to the cultures it encountered and attempted to convert with varying degrees of success. In these essays, Mormonism becomes part of a larger history of Christianity as a diverse and global body of religious traditions."—Church History
 

"In a telling introduction, the editors...take on the wide vistas of nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier. This explanation of Mormonism seeks to shed further light on the 'increasingly analyzed' Pacific Basin world."—Utah Historical Quarterly

About the Author

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp is associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Reid L. Neilson is assistant professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 20 and up
  
• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: University of Utah Press (March 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874809185
• ISBN-13: 978-0874809183
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,803,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Reid L. Neilson was born and reared in Southern California. He received his BA degree in international relations from Brigham Young University in 1996. After graduation he worked for Arthur Andersen's Strategy, Finance, and Economics Division in Los Angeles and London, consulted for Walt Disney's Strategic Planning Division in Tokyo, and researched for the University of Michigan Business School's Asia-Pacific Human Resources Partnership in Hong Kong. He also took graduate degrees in American history and business administration at Brigham Young University in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In 2006 he completed his PhD in religious studies (American religious history emphasis) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was named an International Studies Scholar for Tomorrow Fellow.

Dr. Neilson is the author of three books, including Strangers in a Strange Land: Early Mormon Missionary Explorations and Realities in East Asia (University of Utah Press, forthcoming), and the editor or coeditor of more than a dozen academic books, including Joseph Smith: Reappraisals after Two Centuries (Oxford University Press), The Rise of Mormonism (Columbia University Press), The Mormon History Association's Tanner Lectures: The First Twenty Years (University of Illinois Press), Believing History: Latter-day Saint Essays (Columbia University Press), and Taking the Gospel to the Japanese (Brigham Young University Press). He has also written many essays, book chapters, and introductions and presented dozens of papers on religion, history, and business at a variety of academic conferences. He is currently writing a history of the LDS Church participation at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair titled Exhibiting Mormonism to be published by Oxford University Press.

After serving a full-time mission in the Japan Sapporo Mission, Dr. Neilson married Shelly Anderson. They are the parents of two children and enjoy snow skiing and international travel as a family. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah.