30716

20

118

Book

English

Park, Benjamin E.

Kingdom of Nauvoo : The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

New York, NY

Liveright

2020

[2020 Mormon History Association Winner (tie) for Best Book] Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park recreates the Mormons’ 1839 flight from Missouri to Illinois. There, under the charismatic leadership of Joseph Smith, they founded Nauvoo, which shimmered briefly—but Smith’s challenge to democratic traditions, as well as his new doctrine of polygamy, would bring about its fall. His wife Emma, rarely written about, opposed him, but the greater threat came from without: in 1844, a mob murdered Joseph, precipitating the Mormon trek to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows that far from being outsiders, the Mormons were representative of their era in their distrust of democracy and their attempt to forge a sovereign society of their own.

Nauvoo, Ill., American setting
Nauvoo, Ill.
Award Winner
Nauvoo, Ill., historiography

A Matter of Many Wives: Joseph Smith's Courting in Secret Nauvoo
Contingent Citizens: Shifting Perceptions of Latter-day Saints in American Political Culture
First : The Life and Faith of Emma Smith
“For the General Good of Mankind”: Why Joseph Smith’s Presidential Campaign Matters
“From the Catecombs of Egypt” : Latter-day Saint Engagement with Ancient Egypt and the Contest of Religious Identity
Global Mormonism in Political Context
Global Mormonism in Political Context
“I Dug the Graves” : Isaac Lewis Manning, Joseph Smith, and Racial Connections in Two Latter Day Saint Traditions
“I Would Not Risk My Salvation to Any Man” : Eliza R. Snow's Challenge to Salvific Coverture
Joseph Smith for President : The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom
Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith
Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-Century France
Slavery, Early Latter-day Saint Constitutionalism, and the Limits of the Right to Petition
Storming the Nation : The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries
Susa Young Gates: Daughter of Mormonism
The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition (book)
The Danite Constitution and Theories of Democratic Justice in Frontier America
The Mormon Military Experience: 1838 to the Cold War
The People of Canaan : A New Reading of Moses 7
William Law's Diary and the Perils of Suspect Sources

1842 : Joseph Smith, John C. Bennett, and the Extradition Attempt
A Call to Arms : The 1838 Defense of Northern Missouri
A Correct Account of the Murder of Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith at Carthage, on the 27th day of June, 1844
Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism
A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo
A Journey up the Mississippi River, from Its Mouth to Nauvoo, the City of the Latter day Saints
A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842
American Crucifixion : The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church
Among the Mormons : Historic Accounts by Contemporary Observers
A Narrative of the Adventures and Experience of Joseph H. Jackson, In Nauvoo, Disclosing the Depths of Mormon Villainy
A New Look at the Alleged Little Known Discourse by Joseph Smith
"Armed men are coming from the state of Missouri" : Federalism, Interstate Affairs, and Joseph Smith's Final Attempt to Secure Federal Intervention in Nauvoo
Artworks in the Celestial Room of the First Nauvoo Temple
A Social, Economic, and Political Study of the Mormons in Western Illinois, 1839-1846 : A Re-Evaluation
"A Subject That Can Bear Investigation" : Anguish, Faith, and Joseph Smith's Youngest Plural Wife
A Textual History of the Book of Abraham : Manuscripts and Editions
A Trajectory of Plurality : An Overview of Joseph Smith's Thirty-three Plural Wives
A Woman's View : Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History
Believing History : Latter-day Saints Essays
Brigham Young : Pioneer Prophet
'Brother Joseph Is Truly a Wonderful Man, He Is All We Could Wish a Prophet to Be' : Pre-1844 Letters of William Law
Buckeye's Laments : Two Early Insider Exposes of Mormon Polygamy and Their Authorship
By the Hand of Mormon : The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion
Carthage Conspiracy : The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith
Counterfeiting in Early Mormonism : The Historical Record
Cultures in Conflict : A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois
Debating Succession, March 1846 : John E. Page, Orson Hyde, and the Trajectories of Joseph Smith's Legacy
Defence of Polygamy, by a Lady in Utah : In a Letter to Her Sister in New Hampshire
Determining and Defining 'Wife' : The Brigham Young Households
Divorce among Mormon Polygamists : Extent and Explanations
Exiles in a Land of Liberty : Mormons in America, 1830-1846
Extradition, the Mormons, and the Election of 1843
Fire and Sword : A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-39
General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States
God and the People : Theodemocracy in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism
"God Has Made Us a Kingdom" : James Strang and the Midwest Mormons
Habeas Corpus in Early Nineteenth-Century Mormonism : Joseph Smith's Legal Bulwark for Personal Freedom
Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841-44
'I Intend to Get Up a Whistling School' : The Nauvoo Whistling and Whittling Movement, American Vigilante Tradition, and Mormon Theocratic Thought
'Illicit Intercourse,' Plural Marriage, and the Nauvoo Stake High Council, 1840-1844
In Heaven as It Is on Earth : Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death
In Sacred Loneliness : The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
James Arlington Bennett and the Mormons
Joseph Smith and the Development of Habeas Corpus in Nauvoo, 1841-44
Joseph Smith and the Missouri Court of Inquiry : Austin A. King's Quest for Hostages
Joseph Smith and the Presidency, 1844
Joseph Smith III : Pragmatic Prophet
Joseph Smith Jr. : Reappraisals After Two Centuries
Joseph Smith, Jr.'s Red Brick Store
Joseph Smith's Polygamy
Joseph Smith's Presidential Ambitions
Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845
Joseph's Temples : The Dynamic Relationship Between Freemasonry and Mormonism
Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints
Liberty to the Downtrodden : Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer
Making Space for the Mormons : Ideas of Sacred Geography in Joseph Smith's America
Memoirs of the Persecuted : Persecution, Memory, and the West as a Mormon Refuge
Memory as Evidence : Dating Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages to Louisa Beaman, Zina Jacobs, and Presendia Buell
Mormon Enigma : Emma Hale Smith
Mormonism In All Ages : Or, The Rise, Progress and Causes of Mormonism
Mormonism Unveiled : The Life and Confession of John D. Lee and the Complete Life of Brigham Young
Mormon Redress Petitions : Documents of the 1833-1838 Missouri Conflict
Mormons Seeking Mormonism : Strangite Success and the Conceptualization of Mormon Ideology, 1844-50
Mormon Women's History : Beyond Biography
Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons : With Particulars Concerning the Training of the Indians, by Them, Description of the Mode of Endowment, Plurality of Wives
Nauvoo Polygamy : "... But We Called it Celestial Marriage"
Nauvoo, the Beautiful
Ordering Antinomy : An Analysis of Early Mormonism's Priestly Offices, Councils, and Kinship
Parley P. Pratt : The Apostle Paul of Mormonism
Political Deliverance : The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood
Quest for Refuge : The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism
Race and the Making of the Mormon People
Religion and Sexuality : The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community
Religion of a Different Color : Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness
Return to the City of Joseph: Modern Mormonism's Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo
Runaway Wives, 1830-1860
Scattering of the Saints : Schism within Mormonism
Searching for "Happiness" : Joseph Smith's Alleged Authorship of the 1842 Letter to Nancy Rigdon
Seeking the 'Remnant' : The Native American during the Joseph Smith Period
Sidney Rigdon : A Portrait of Religious Excess
The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri
The Boggs Shooting and Attempted Extradition : Joseph Smith's Most Famous Case
The Book of Daniel in Early Mormon Thought
The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse
The Cadre for the Kingdom : The Electioneer Missionaries of Joseph Smith's 1844 Presidential Campaign
The City of the Mormons : Or, Three Days at Nauvoo
The Danite Band of 1838
The Danites Reconsidered : Were They Vigilantes or Just the Mormons' Version of the Elks Club?
The Development of Early Latter-day Saint Marriage Rites, 1831-53
The Early Mormon Chain of Belonging
The First Fifty Years of Relief Society : Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History
The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri : A Complete Edition : P. JS 1-4 and the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq
The Kingdom of Matthias
The Missouri Mormon Experience
The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith
The Mormon Question : Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Mormons : A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Mormons in Illinois, 1838-1846, A Special Introduction
The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847 : Norton Jacob's Record
The Persistence of Polygamy : From Joseph Smith's Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890
The Saintly Scoundrel : The life and times of Dr. John Cook Bennett
The Separation of Church and State in Mormon Theory and Practice
The Texas Republic and the Mormon Kingdom of God
The Translator and the Ghostwriter : Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps
'They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet' : The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding
To Fill up the World : Joseph Smith as Urban Planner
To the "Honest and Patriotic Sons of Liberty" : Mormon Appeals for Redress and Social Justice, 1843-44
Tragedy and Truth : What Happened at Hawn's Mill
Unpopular Sovereignty : Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory
"Was This Really Missouri Civilization?" : The Haun's Mill Massacre in Missouri and Mormon History
When Joseph Smith Met Martin Van Buren : Mormonism and the Politics of Religious Liberty in Nineteenth-Century America
William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter
Women and Authority : Re-emerging Mormon Feminism
Women and Mormon Authority
Women and Mormonism : Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Women of Covenant : The Story of Relief Society
Women's Voices : An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900
Zion Rising : Joseph Smith's Early Social and Political Thought