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Kingdom of Nauvoo

The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

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Kingdom of Nauvoo

By: Benjamin E. Park
Narrated by: Bob Souer
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About this listen

An extraordinary story of faith and violence in 19th-century America, based on previously confidential documents from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park re-creates the Mormons' 1839 flight from Missouri to Illinois. There, under the charismatic leadership of Joseph Smith, they founded Nauvoo, which shimmered briefly - but Smith's challenge to democratic traditions, as well as his new doctrine of polygamy, would bring about its fall. His wife Emma, rarely written about, opposed him, but the greater threat came from without: in 1844, a mob murdered Joseph, precipitating the Mormon trek to Utah.

Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows that far from being outsiders, the Mormons were representative of their era in their distrust of democracy and their attempt to forge a sovereign society of their own.

©2020 Benjamin E. Park (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Americas Christianity History State & Local United States Mormon Royalty Old West Wild West

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One of the best history books I’ve ever read, so well written and fascinating. Top stuff even if like me you know virtually zero about the Mormons

Brilliant

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Religious history can sometimes be.. well, boring. However, in this book Benjamin Park offers a novel insight into the founding years of the Mormon church in Nauvoo, as well as a new perspective on frontier life. I genuinely respect the amount of work that must’ve gone into this book, as it is packed with detail and yet presented in a unique way. Also, as a non-believer, I appreciated that this was a very secular representation of a religious topic, which made the book very digestible.

Surprisingly interesting

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I liked the detailed and clear way the book narrates the early years of the Mormon faith.

An impartial view of the History of the Church

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