Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier (Library of American Biography)

This is a somewhat controversial work but American history buffs who seek a refreshing literary anomaly in an effort to wean themselves from mundane and traditional fare will enjoy Bringhurst's Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier (Library of American Biography Series) (Library of American Biography). Conversely, those who find themselves unable to cite the correct date for the outbreak of the American Civil War would probably do well to steer clear of this one until they have achieved a more firm grasp of "Manifest Destiny" as well as at least a cursory knowledge of the various early religious movements in America. The reason for this caution is that Bringhurst casts a very broad net which solidly captures the peripheral history of the period. Brigham Young was a controversial figure even before he first achieved fame as the second renowned leader of the Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a.k.a. LDS Church). Joseph Smith was the founder and "Prophet" of this religious movement, Young's predecessor. Bringhurst apportions the travels and diverse activities of Brigham Young in digestible, logically-contrived morsels. This chronicle can be encapsulated into the following episodes: 1. Brigham Young and the Mormons during the Joseph Smith leadership. 2. The "planning period" following Smith's death. 3. The pre-migration (to Utah) period. 4. The post-immigration or settlement period (Salt Lake City). Young was born in Vermont in 1801 and reared in an environment which Bringhurst describes as, "...austere, ascetic Methodism." It was Mormonism which eventually provided him with a springboard to renown since he was quite willing to work diligently toward that end. Young continued to build upon his own ranking within the Mormon Church until 1844 when Joseph Smith was murdered. For the next thirty-three years Brigham Young became the principal Mormon Leader even though his leadership was intermittently contested by certain fringe members of the original congregation, a group which spilt off the main body and became known as the "Reorganized" Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (which was ultimately renamed the "Community of Christ" Church in 2001). This group abhorred polygamy and it is chiefly that very doctrine of the early LDS Church which haunted Brigham Young until his death in 1877. Young's legacy is manifest today. His establishment of the Mormon Trail was subsequently compacted by the mass migrations of sect members from England as well as those from the "home bases" of Kirtland, Ohio and Nauvoo, Illinois. Salt Lake City similarly stands as a monument which reflects the political, economic, and religious engineering of Brigham Young and Bringhurst brings all this to light. Bringhurst does dispel some erroneous Brigham Young mythology but he effects this in a way that, by simply reading the book, we cannot discern Bringhurst's own religious persuasions, (albeit, his rabid interest in his chosen s

"Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier" is a fine, brief biographical study of the Mormon leader who succeeded in taking leadership of the single largest faction of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints following the death of founder Joseph Smith Jr. in 1844. Written by one of my close personal friends, so I am not an unbiased reviewer, this book captures well in the relatively short text the life of this remarkable leader who took his followers to the Great Basin, created a theocratic society on the western frontier, and established Mormonism as a major homegrown North American religion. Newell G. Bringhurst is professor of history at the College of the Sequoias in California, and the author of several important books and articles on the history of Mormonism. He gives full credit to Brigham Young's genius and creativity as a religious leader, and to his commitment to what Young viewed as the core teachings of Joseph Smith. After a discussion of Young's birth and early history, Bringhurst traces his career from his conversion to Mormonism, his experience in the travails of the church's early history, his call as an Apostle in 1835, his mission to England, the assassination of Joseph Smith and his succession to president of the church, the westward exodus to Utah, the creation of a theocratic empire in the Rockies, controversies with the federal government, and his eventual death in 1877. In several areas Bringhurst offers suggestive explanations of important aspects of Young's life. For example, Young embraced plural marriage in the 1840s as a religious tenet of Mormonism, despite its controversial nature within the U.S. and his personal difficulties with several of his wives. Bringhurst notes suggestively that plural marriage might be explained as a collective mid-life crisis of Mormon officials in the 1840s. He asks, could the religious connotations associated with it have been way to legitimize lascivious behavior? "Perhaps polygamy," Bringhurst speculates, "was the product of a so-called `middle-age crisis' that Smith, along with other Mormon leaders, experience by the late 1830s and early 1840s. The taking of plural wives, particularly young, attractive ones, represented an effort to recapture youthful vigor and vitality" (p. 54). Of course, such a suggestion requires considerably more research before being advanced as a legitimate theory, but it is certainly something worth exploring. Bringhurst's short biography of Brigham Young is laced with such intriguing observations. "Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier" is not the last word on the history of Young, but it is a very fine synthesis of what we understand about this critically important nineteenth century American. Criticisms of Bringhurst's book that it fails to take to task the "absurd foundation" of Mormonism is both unfair and unfounded. It is a worthwhile short biography of Brigham Young, an accessible history of the Mormon Church in its forma