Book Review: Images of the New Jerusalem

A few months ago, while traveling on a rickety bus in Peru from Cusco to Puno, I read Craig Campbell’s Images of the New Jerusalem: Latter Day Saint Faction Interpretation of Independence, Missouri.

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JAH Review of Paul Reeve’s Making Space

Paul Reeve’s new book, Making Space on the Western Frontier, has received some positive reviews around the ‘nacle. ‘Nacle reviews however count for very little in the world of academia. In the latest issue of The Journal of American History historian Anne Hyde has written a very positive review of the work, calling it “an effective case study at both the micro and macro levels.” In summarizing Reeve’s study, Hyde concludes that Reeve’s attention to the workings of federal officials to privilege mining interests at the expense of Southern Paiute and Mormon claims to space in southern Utah/eastern Nevada is “stunning.” She lauds his reconstruction of efforts by Mormons and Southern Paiutes to survive the onslaught of “an awesome flexing of federal might.” The review, unlike Reeve’s prose, is a bit dry, but is well worth the read. I suspect that Paul is more than a little pleased to see his book so well reviewed in one of the top journals in the historical profession.

For those with access to a university library, here’s a like to the full text of the review.

Zion v. Babylon: Life in the Enclave

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons.

 In his recent (and excellent) book, Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes, Paul Reeve examines the contact and interactions between the three groups mentioned in his title in southern Utah/eastern Nevada during the last four decades of the 19th century. Although Reeve uses the word “frontier” in his title, he is not using it in the same way as Frederick Jackson Turner, who saw the frontier as succeeding waves of Anglo

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The Chronicles of Joseph: JS’s Journals in the Ensign

This month’s Ensign contains a fascinating little article describing Joseph Smith’s seven journals. The authors, two friends of mine, are editors on the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Mark Ashurst-McGee (MA, USU; PhD. candidate, ASU) is editing journals from the 1830s. Alex Smith (MA, BYU) is editing Smith’s journals from 1841-April 1843. Mark is also editing the journals from April 1843 to June 1844. They’re both excellent scholars and likely know more about these journals, in terms of content, physical description, and provenance, than anyone alive. Alex has worked directly with the Nauvoo journal, The Book of the Law of the Lord, which previous scholars such as Scott Faulring and Michael Marquardt have not had access to.

The 6 page article gives summaries of the seven journals and also includes images of the artifacts. We also get

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