Title: Nauvoo as Mormon Mythmaking
Review: First published in 1900, this book on the Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois, between 1839 and 1846 is overtly mythic. It too often reduces the actual complexity of events, avoids matters that challenge or contradict Mormon myth, views the Mormons as good and their opponents as evil, and all too often ignores the cultural context of the early church. It deals with the Mormon experience in a defensive manner while fostering the myth of Mormon innocence and religious persecution. Roberts emphasizes the persecution of the Mormons for religious reasons, but fails to explore systematically the causes of conflict that led to the assassinations of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844.
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