Regular marked price: $19.95Discount Price: $17.95
Cost Savings: $2.00 (10%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 289.33209
EAN num: 9780252062360
ISBN number: 0252062361
Label: University of Illinois Press
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 456
Printing Date: March 01, 1992
Publishing house: University of Illinois Press
Sale Popularity Level: 330311
Studio: University of Illinois Press
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The best history of the Latter-Day Saints addressed to a general audience now includes a new preface, an epilogue, and a bibliographical afterword. 'This is without a doubt the definitive Mormon history'.--Library Journal.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
Yet another sanitized, truth-fearing, "just eat around the bad parts", documentary omitting the true extent of -
- "State of open rebellion". - 1857
- Removed Brigham Young from Office of Governor.
- Sedition
- Treason
- Arson
- Burglary
- "Apostate branding" ....punising sanctions.
- "Blood Oath of Vengeance"
- Blood Atonement
- Indian Massacres
(found guilty of "manslaughter"? ...eg."without malice?")
- Mountain Meadows Massacre
- Sexually perverse polyandry.
.....and assorted "crimes against persons" in the U.S.
They have repeatedly declared autonomy from, and renounced recognition of - the laws of the United States, beginning with Joseph Smith: "I am above the kingdoms of the world, for I have no laws." HC The History of the Church 5:526
"I have more to boast of than ever any man had. .......I boast that no man ever did such a work as I." J.S. History of the Church, vol.6, pp.408-409
Enjoy your journey into the "History Amnesia" of religious fanatacism.
Rated by buyers 
-
This book is scholarly and well documented, and Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton are to be praised for giving a fair hearing to Fawn Brodie's "No Man Knows My History."
Speaking of the Book of Mormon (p. 15), they write: "Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith's eminent but unsympathetic biographer, has advanced the second principal countertheory of the book's orgins." They then go on to fully present Brodie's view of Joseph Smith.
Continuing, Arrington and Bitton present the Mormon view: "Mormons insist that Smith's limited education made it impossible for him to produce such a long and complicated book by himself. The issues in the book are seen by defenders as universal, and likey to have aroused interest in ancient times as well as in modern America."
Such objective and unemotional scholarship is refreshing and stands in marked contrast to that of BYU Professor Hugh Nibley, who, for example, illogically invisioned Joseph Smith being both a translator and illiterate (!) (see "Lehi in the Desert," p. 32). In speaking of the disappearing gold plates, Nibley said illogically that they would be "very disruptive" yesterday and that the present paper edition of the Book of Mormon is "more miraculous than any gold plates would be" (see, "An Approach to the Book of Mormon, p. 18).
See my one-star reviews of Nibley's books--"Lehi in the Desert," "Since Cumorah," and "An Approach to the Book of Mormon." Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 5) Since Cumorah: The Book of Mormon in the modern world An Approach to the Book of Mormon (Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 6)
Mormon scholars Arrington and Bitton, as well as Richard Bushman, have taken a higher and more logical road than Hugh Nibley, the former big-gun of Mormon scholarship.
In short, Arrington and Bitton deserve the praise of the Utah Historical Quarterly, "An excellent book...it should be read by Mormons and non-Mormons alike."
The Saturday Review called it, "A remarkably intelligent and open-minded official history."
As a non-Mormon, I admire Arrington and Bitton's book, "The Mormon Experience," for its reasoned approach to Mormon history.
Rated by buyers -
Although described as a history, this book is actually more of a description of Mormonism and the Mormon lifestyle. We are told a good deal about how the Saints spend their time and just how much effort must be devoted to church affairs. The last chapters describe how followers have responded to the challenge of modernism, already facing the church by the 1970's.
But don't get me wrong, there is quite a bit of history here nonetheless, and the author spends a lot of time explaining what made the Mormons so different from other faiths and why they suffered so much violence at the hands of 'gentiles'. I was surprised that so much print was given to the issue of polygamy, expecting the subject to be dodged by a Mormon writer. And a good job is done of addressing the strengths and weaknesses of the religion. Arrington does not write as a mere cheerleader for Latter Day Saints.
The reader is told subsequent to nothing, though, about Mormon theology, and this is a huge drawback. After all, most of the criticism thrown at the church is directed at its unusual beliefs, not practices. The postscipt complains that anti-Mormonism is on the comeback, but never mentions the doctinal element fundamental to all this. A chapter on church beliefs would have gone a long way toward making this a more complete book.
Rated by buyers -
Although I am not a Mormon, I am interested in the church's history, but I have had trouble finding unbiased sources. Misled by some Amazon reviews, I purchased this book because I believed it was objective, but it is not. It is actually a defense of the LDS church in Utah (as distinguished from other Mormon denominations). In fact, both authors are True Believers, and Arrington was the church's official "historian" from 1972 to 1982. The following example illustrates the bias that permeates this book. Referring to Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder, they write: "This tall, robust, blue-eyed man could receive a revelation, wrestle a workman, outrun a mob, and develop plans for a model city virtually in the same day." That, dear reader, is hagiography, not history. Even worse, the authors have an embarrassing tendency to raise outlandish defenses against evidence that might contradict the church's doctrine or traditions. For example, when an early follower claimed an academic had verified part of Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon, the academic vehemently denied it and said the entire episode appeared to be a "hoax on the learned." That denial would seem to weaken the follower's claims, but these authors raise the ingenious defense that the academic may have been lying when he denied validating the translation. The only difficulty with this convenient but entirely speculative hypothesis is that it is not supported by a single shred of empirical evidence. It is a pure invention whose only value is that it defends the church. These authors cannot "play fair" with the evidence, because their deep commitment to their faith prevents them from examining it objectively. So readers who seek an even handed account must look elsewhere. Mormons who wish to reinforce their faith, however, will enjoy this book, because it offers a dependable and reassuring defense of the church's teachings. In fact, that is why it was written.
Rated by buyers -
As someone who has read many, many books on the topic of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I can honestly say that this text is one of the best books on Mormon history I have so far come across. I believe that the late Arrington and Bitton do an excellent job in providing a fair and balanced overview of the Latter-day Saint religion since 1820, as well as refuting some common anti-Mormon claims, showing that, contra the late Wesley Walters, author of "Inventing Mormonism" and other screeds, religious revivals *did* occur in 1819-1820, consistent with the chronology offered by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the History of the Church and the versions of the First Vision he gave throughout his lifetime.
Recommended reading for any serious student of "Mormonism."
Find other books like this one:
