Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters

Rating:
Summary: "What is truth?" - Pilate
Review: "Mormon mavericks" speaks to everyone of us. The mavericks mentioned are from different time periods and include people close to Joseph Smith or General Authorities. Their fates differs in that some chose to stay in the church, other chose or forced to choose to be outside. The essays are beautifully written, the writing styles are refreshing and one wonders how one own's life would be written by others, in 10-20 pages. The book taught a lot about other people's worries, thoughts and actions in a way that made it so clear, so destined in some way, one wonders again if we all are a part of this pattern of reaching one's inner fulfilled desires. Hopefully.

Most fascinating essays were those about people seeking truth, historical truth, like Fawn Brodie, Juantia Brooks, Sterling McMurrins, Michael Quinn and Thomas Ferguson. The essay about Juanita and her importance, I consider her as the first New Mormon Historian, is powerful. Most striking were the personal touch of the essays about Sterling and Michael. The "I" took me very close to these personalities. I think that the Church should see how valuable these persons have been and are. It is a good deed to grant blessings posthumously but frankly I believe that many should have experienced it when living.


Rating:
Summary: Mormonism's Dissent Boundaries
Review: This collection contains several fine essays. The most important one is exclusive to this volume and is worth the price of the book: Lavina Fielding Anderson's "DNA Mormon: D. Michael Quinn." Quinn is the most important living Mormon historian, having addressed, among other topics, the institutional development of the Mormon leadership, polygamy, post-manifesto polygamy, the folk-magic context of early Mormonism, Mormonism's changing definitions of gender, Mormonism and war, J. Reuben Clark (a high-ranking church leader and former U.S. undersecretary of state), and the complex interaction between faith and history. His books and articles have won numerous prizes, including the American Historical Association's prestigious Herbert Feis Prize for _Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example_. His life, unfortunately, demonstrates the perils of contradicting Mormon Church authorities, which in his case resulted in his forced resignation from a BYU professorship and in his involuntary excommunication from the church he loved. Anderson, who enjoyed access to Quinn's personal papers, summarizes his life with a sensitivity rarely found in short biography.