Review
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Title: Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History (Second Edition)
Editor in Chief: Brandon S. Plewe
Publisher: BYU Press
Genre: Atlas
Year Published: 2014
Number of Pages: 272
Binding: Cloth
ISBN: 978-0-8425-2879-5
Price: 39.95
Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association for Mormon Letters
“If there is a place you got to go
I am the one you need to know
I'm the Map!
"If there is a place you got to get
I can get you there I bet
I'm the Map!”
- Dora The Explorer – “I'm the Map!”
I remember learning at a fairly young age that maps and charts were very useful things to have. I learned that a map could help you find where you were going and keep you from getting lost and I learned that charts were packed full of all sorts of useful information that could help you to understand problems, identify trends, and find solutions. When I reached a point in my life where I was called upon to teach Sunday school and Priesthood I began to frequently use the maps in my LDS-produced scriptures. I found them to be very useful tools for providing context and perspective for the lessons that we were learning. As good as they were, though, at times I wished that there was more to them. More detail, more specifics, more variety, etc. With the arrival of the second, updated, edition of the BYU Press published “Mapping Mormonism,” I have been given pretty much every possible map, chart, timeline, and illustration for studying and teaching Mormonism that I could possibly want. This book is fantastic, interesting, and presents Mormon history in a unique and an exciting visual way.
The work on “Mapping Mormonism” is top notch. The book is visually and physically appealing. The illustrations and maps are full color and beautifully presented. The paper is of a high quality with a glossy look and feel that really adds to the presentation. The binding is solid and should help the book last for a long time. The quality of the scholarly work in the book matches the quality of the physical presentation of the text. The various contributors to “Mapping Mormonism” are some of the best scholars available in their respective subjects. The Editor in Chief, Cartographer, and chief graphics artist is Brandon Plewe (PhD) of the BYU Geography department. The Associate Editors are: S. Kent Brown, professor emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, Donald Q. Cannon, professor emeritus of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, and Richard H. Jackson, professor emeritus of Geography at Brigham Young University. Contributing authors include quite a “who’s who” on the history of Mormonism. Some of these contributors include: Thomas Alexander, Ronald O. Barney, Alexander Baugh, Lowell C. Bennion, Susan Easton Black, Richard O. Cowan, Jill Mulvay Derr, Jessie L. Embry, Ronald K. Esplin, J. Spencer Fluhman, William G. Hartley, Edward L. Kimball, Larry C. Porter, Gregory A. Prince, William Russell, Steven L. Shields, Mark L. Staker, Gary Topping, and Richard E Turley Jr. One thing that really impressed me about this list is that the editors were so determined to get the best experts for each of the articles/subjects in the book that they did not limit themselves to using only Mormon authors. The article on “The Community of Christ” was written by Barbara Hands Bernauer, Assistant Archivist of the Community of Christ and William Russell, a member of the Community of Christ and an emeritus professor of the Community of Christ-run college, Graceland University. The article on “The Succession Crisis” was written by Steven L. Shields, a member of the Community of Christ who works in their International Field Ministries. The article on “The Gentiles” was written by Gary Topping, a Catholic scholar who is the archivist for the Salt Lake City Diocese of the Catholic Church.
"Mapping Mormonism" is divided into four sections. One nice design element of the book is that each section is designated by a different colored hue at the top of the page. These colors are visible along the top of the fore edge when the book is closed, aiding the reader in locating entries.
The first section is titled “The Restoration”. This section includes articles, maps, pictures and charts that cover events related to a time period that covers from the 1790’s with articles such as “Origins of Early Church Leaders” and “The Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith Family” up through “The Succession Crisis” and “Planning the Exodus” from Nauvoo in 1846.
Section Two is titled “The Empire of Deseret” and covers the years 1846 to 1910. The first article in this section is “The Exodus Begins” and the last one is named simply enough, “The Church in 1910.”
The third section is called “The Expanding Church” and covers the period from 1912 to the present (I guess that nothing important happened in the LDS Church in 1911?). This section begins by discussing “Historical Sites” and ends with a description of “The Future of the Church.” The final section of the book is on “Regional History.” Articles, maps, and charts in this section give a history of the LDS Church in various areas around the United States and the world from the arrival of pioneers or missionaries in that area to “the present” (2014 in most cases).
The articles in the book are all brief, with some only two paragraphs long and most no more than five or six paragraphs in length. Despite their brevity, the articles are well written, informative, and interesting. There is no way to talk about all of them in this review, but I will comment on a few that had details that interested me. In the first section the article on Palmyra and Manchester includes a very nice illustration and a map that give great perspective on the Smith farm including where the “log house,” “frame house,” “Sacred Grove,” “Hill Cumorah,” and the Village of Palmyra are in relation to each other. Also in this first section is an article on “Latter-day Scripture” that includes a very useful timeline that highlights all of the major LDS and RLDS editions of the Book of Mormon, LDS editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (LDS only obviously) from 1830 to 2014. A nice touch in the article on “The Mormon-Missouri War: 1838-1839” is that rather than presenting the war as all “good” Mormons versus all “bad” Missourians it states that “while moderates dominated both groups, prejudice and bigotry among radicals on both sides inevitably led to tensions” (p. 150).
My favorite article in this section is Steven L. Shields' previously mentioned and well written article on “The Succession Crisis.” At eleven paragraphs, presented over four pages, this is one of the longer articles in the book. Included with it are pictures (with one exception) and brief biographies of leaders of seven major schismatic Churches of the Joseph Smith Restoration Movement: Brigham Young (LDS), Joseph Smith III (RLDS), James J. Strang (used the same name as LDS but sometimes called “Strangites”), Granville Hedrick (“Church of Christ” sometimes called “Hedrickites”), Sidney Rigdon (Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion), William Bickerton (Church of Jesus Christ or “Bickertonites”), and Lyman Wight (also used same full name as LDS, sometimes called “Wightites”). There were two things that I especially liked about this article. The first is the perspective that Shields brings as a member of the Community of Christ. Having a Community of Christ scholar pen this article helped to keep it focused on history rather polemics or who was “right” and who was an “apostate.” The second thing that I liked about this article was that it dispelled a few myths that I learned growing up. I remember being taught that almost the entire Church followed Brigham Young and that only a few, weak-testimonied stragglers remained behind, to be fought over by the various break-off groups. In his brief article Shields explains that in 1844 there were “in effect, three different churches: the Nauvoo Stake, the scattered branches in the United States and Canada, and the British Mission” (p. 66) with the 30,000 member population of the Church being divided roughly mathematically into thirds among these three groups. Shields further expounds that more than geography and distance divided these three groups. Coming into play were the late teachings and developments of Joseph Smith that were largely known only in Nauvoo. These included temple ceremonies, plural marriage, and the Council of Fifty. Those in Nauvoo largely supported Brigham Young and the Twelve as did those in the British Isles. However the third of the members in other parts of the USA and Canada in 1844 largely followed the other churches that split off of the movement started by Joseph Smith.
In the second section the article on the “Utah War” authored by Richard Turley and John Eldredge is well done and reasonably balanced. Among other sources it cites William McKinnon’s important and landmark study “At Sword’s Point” (2008, Arthur H. Clark/UOP) and it provides a very current and up to date interpretation and understanding of the conflict. Gary Topping’s article on “The Gentiles” is also very good and provides important, if brief, information on the influence of non-Mormons in the Utah territory between 1862 and 1910. My favorite article in this section was the one on “Plural Marriage: 1841-1904.” This article starts by addressing the popular, long lasting, and at one time officially sanctioned Mormon myth that only “3 or 4 percent” of the male population of the Church practiced plural marriage (p. 122). The article demonstrates that at its height 25-30 percent of the Church practiced polygamy. It also states that while this number may still seem “low” compared to the total Church population, “demographers insist a stable population cannot sustain a polygamous population higher than that” (p. 124). Authored by Lowell C. Bennion, this is a very good article. Other articles I enjoyed include “Welfare and Humanitarian Aid: 1936-Present,” "David O McKay: 1873-1970" (by Gregory Prince), “Building Meetinghouses: 1952-present” (which includes over a dozen illustrations demonstrating the evolution of LDS meetinghouse designs over the last half of the 20th century), a similar article on “Temples,” an article on “Political Affiliation: 1900-present” (Mormons used to vote for Democrats!), and the article on “The Community of Christ: 1860-present.”
While this is an excellent book, I do feel that its usefulness could have been greatly increased with a companion CD or downloadable resources that could be projected or used in teaching Sunday school lessons. There is a website for the project, http://mappingmormonism.byu.edu/ that does have many of the maps from the book. It has links to information about the book, information about the editors, some maps, some geohistorical data, a link called “Mormon Places,” and a link to Sunday School supplements (it takes you back to the maps link, at least it did with me). I have just begun to explore the website and do not have a full command of its resources yet. The best part of this website that I have seen so far is the “Mormon Places” link which can show you various stakes and important places around the world in map or satellite image form. This is a pretty useful tool and was fun to play with. Some images are downloadable if you have the correct software to read them. I did have some trouble when I tried to navigate the website. For instance, I clicked on a map of the Eastern United states expecting to zoom in or get a close-up of that region. Instead, I was taken to a map of Europe. When I clicked on Germany on that map expecting to get a close up of Germany I was taken to a map of Ogden, Utah. Also, while the items that I found on the website looked interesting, I could not find a way to zoom in or make them larger.
One thing that I think would have been really cool for the website to include (or a companion CD, if one existed) would be videos or animated gifs. There are some really cool charts and maps in this book that demonstrate the growth and progress of the Church. As an example, the book has an article called “Church Headquarters” (pp. 114-117) that has four excellent graphics that portray the Temple Square/Salt Lake headquarters campus of the Church in 1860, 1900, 1950, and 2012. These are really cool images, some of my favorite images in the book. But, they would be even cooler as an animated gif style image that could, with appearing and disappearing rendered images, show an animated timeline of when and where buildings were added or removed from the four city block headquarters of the Church.
By saying this, I do not want to take away from how great this book is; my suggestions would merely be an enhancement to an already great product. I realize that cost and time are likely the issue here. At $39.95 the book is a steal, but as a consumer, if this kind of current, top notch digital resource could have been added for the price of 10 or 15 dollars to the cover price of the book, it would be totally worth it.
I only have one complaint about “Mapping Mormonism.” In Section Three, “The Expanding Church,” there is an article titled “The Mormon Outmigration: 1919-1970” (pp. 144-147) that was co-written by G. Wesley and Marian Ashby Johnson. The main article is six paragraphs long and gives a description of how, after the year 1900, some Mormons living in Utah and Idaho began migrating away from the Mormon “Zion” to other parts of the USA in search of educational and employment opportunities. Along with the main article there are pictures and one or two sentence biographies of 19 influential Mormons from this time period who left the Mountain West and then played important roles in business or politics in the areas that they moved to. Of the 19 individuals described, 18 are men and only one, Ester Peterson (1906-1977, teacher, union organizer and lobbyist, and advisor to President Jimmy Carter) is a woman. I must admit, this is not a period or subject about Mormon history about which I am very familiar, but to me, this seems very unbalanced. Maybe there were no other influential Mormon women in business, politics, or education, etc. outside of Utah during this era; maybe the Johnsons identified the only one. But I would think that there had to be other women who could have been highlighted here. If I am wrong, then I remove my objection.
Dora’s little scrolled-up friend was right: “If there is a place you got to go, I am the one you need to know, I'm the Map.” Maps are fascinating tools and the ones in this volume are extraordinary. I love Restoration history. I have read a lot of it. My personal library contains hundreds of volumes of LDS history that include biographies, survey histories, subject histories, regional histories, documentary histories, you name it. It is hard to find a subject in LDS history that I do not have an important volume on. The articles in this volume are by nature and necessity very brief. You are not going to learn any new information in this book. What you will gain is an entirely new and important visual perspective of Church history.
This volume takes the important episodes of Church history that I have read and learned about and gives them a graphic, visual representation that has not been available before. “Mapping Mormonism” will make a fine addition to the library of any LDS historian, teacher of LDS history, or LDS family library. With these maps on hand, you will get to the “place you got to go” in your mind’s eye and gain a greater grasp of LDS history.
