The first book we'll be covering in our book review series is Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder (2005), written by Richard Lyman Bushman with assistance from Jed Woodworth. Richard Bushman (b. 1931) is an emeritus professor of history at Columbia University and is himself an active Latter-day Saint who lives in New York City. The book itself is, as one might guess, a biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844), the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. It is published by Alfred A. Knopf (a division of Random House) and won the 2005 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association, as well as the 2005 Evans Biography Award from University of Utah's Mountain West Center for Regional Studies. Further relevant links:
And now, for the links to our review/summary posts themselves:
- The Church of Christ: 1830
- Joseph, Moses, and Enoch: 1830
- The Kirtland Visionaries: January-June 1831
- Zion: July-December 1831
- The Burden of Zion: 1832
- Exaltation: 1832-33
- Cities of Zion: 1833
- The Character of a Prophet: 1834
- Priesthood and Church Government: 1834-35
- Visitors: 1835
- Texts: 1835
- Strife: August-December 1835
- The Order of Heaven: January-April 1836
- Reverses: April 1836-January 1838
- Trials: January-July 1838
- War: August-December 1838
- Imprisonment: January-August 1839
- Washington: September 1839-June 1840
- Beautiful Place: April 1840-April 1841
- Temporalities and Spiritualities: 1841
- Stories of Eternity: Spring 1842
- Perils: May-December 1842
- Thickets: 1843
- City and Kingdom: 1843-1844
- Confrontations: January-June 1844
- Epilogue
Not being as familiar as I'd like yet with the full and detailed story of Joseph Smith, I suspect I'll mostly be absorbing the narrative in this book, so please bear with me; this 'review' will be very heavy on the summary and relatively light on evaluation, in order that it can also serve as an introduction to the life of Joseph Smith for myself and my non-LDS readers. Thanks for reading!
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