Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose
impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith.
He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts
for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than fifty
women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision
of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have
been distorted by hagiography or polemical expose, John Turner
provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American
religion, politics, and westward expansion.
After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young
gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them
over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the
patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic
as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an
indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic,
treasonous heretic.
Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of
African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857,
and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the
Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young's tenacity and
faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West,
imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his
church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this
spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his
church and the American Mountain West."
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