Book Reviews

Glory Hunter: A Biography of Patrick Edward Connor.

By BRIGHAM D MADSEN (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990 x + 318 pp $27.50.)

With Glory Hunter, Brigham D Madsen, professor emeritus of history at the University of Utah, builds on his earlier studies of northern Utah Territory's Indian affairs, church history, and army exploration to produce a full-length biography of P Edward Connor, one of the Great Basin's second-tier business and political leaders of the Gilded Age. In the process, he gives us a far more complete understanding of Connor than have previous biographers with their exclusive focus on Connor's relatively brief but better known military career as an Indian fighting Civil War general. That Madsen has been able to do so largely successfully despite destruction of Connor's personal and business papers is no small accomplishment; Glory Hunter reflects the author's diligent research into what he calls the public record: newspaper articles, army records, mining claims, legal papers, and the minute books of business and civic organizations.

As Professor Madsen has been able to reconstruct it, Connor began life in County Kerry, Ireland's Killarney district, during 1820 or 1821 as a member of the O'Connor family which immigrated to New York sometime in the early 1830s Madsen then traces Connor's 1839 enlistment in the army's First Regiment of Dragoons as an ambitious, action-oriented but probably poorly educated teenager.

Five years of duty as a soldier in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa provided a maturing Connor with employment, a company-level military education, rugged exposure to the plains West, and—Madsen speculates—proximity to the LDS communities of the Mississippi Valley and the anti-Mormon attitudes that surrounded them. Following discharge in 1844, Connor returned to New York to run a grocery, Anglicize his name, and assume U.S. citizenship.

On the eve of the Mexican War, Connor migrated to Texas and joined a company of volunteer infantrymen who elected him their captain—a process that probably reflected his dragoon experience and which began his life-long ability to organize and lead men in contracting, mining, or military roles. February 1847 brought Connor's company to the battle of Buena Vista, an action during which the unit sustained heavy casualties including Connor himself who was wounded in the hand Three months later Connor resigned his volunteer commission due to the disability of "chronic rheumatism."

By 1850, after a three-year series of undocumented but presumably western adventures, Connor literally surfaced in northern California, having swum ashore from a shipwreck to join the gold rush at the Trinity River mines There followed a colorful series of jobs elsewhere in California during 1850-1854: piling contractor, harbor pilot, surveyor, customs collector, and officer of the state ranger company that captured and beheaded Joaquin Murietta. By 1855 he had married Johanna Connor, an unrelated fellow immigrant from County Kerry, and had settled in Stockton. During the balance of the antebellum period Connor built roads and water works as a general contractor while serving in a wide range of relatively minor civic, political, and militia organizations. Madsen speculates that in Stockton Connor was probably exposed to the anti-Mormon attitudes of both his neighbors and their newspapers as he may have been affected years earlier while a dragoon private.

Four months after the outbreak of the Civil War, Connor, a California militia captain, entered federal service as a colonel of volunteers and was assigned to defend the overland stage route through Nevada and Utah territories against Indian attack with a mixed brigade of cavalry and infantry troops, many of them former gold miners. In seven chapters Madsen then traces Connor's progressively more responsible five-year military career, a colorful period during which Connor advanced to brigadier general while relentlessly and ruthlessly pursuing Indians across the Great Basin to the point of extermination as at the Bear River Massacre in 1862 and less decisively on the Powder River Expedition three years later. Background music for these enormously popular thrusts were a series of controversies in which Connor pitted himself against Brigham Young while simultaneously establishing Fort Douglas on the slopes above Salt Lake City and opening a heretofore closed Utah to a near-flood of non-Mormon miners seeking copper, silver, and lead. In some cases the mining claims were those filed by Connor himself or his troops, as in Rush Valley where, notwithstanding his army commission, he founded and virtually owned the town of Stockton. In the spring of 1866 he was breveted a major general of volunteers and mustered out of the army.

Tracing Connor's next twenty-five years—until his illness and lonely death in a Salt Lake hotel in 1891— Madsen tells a seven-chapter story of the general's civilian business life, encompassing a succession of vigorous but ultimately ruinous mining, railroad, real estate, and steamboating ventures in Nevada and Utah Madsen also sketches a political tableau in which the Republican party in Nevada and anti-Mormon Liberal party in Utah used Connor's reputation to advance their own objectives while failing to support him effectively in his personal efforts to seek a series of progressively less significant local offices With all of his shuttling from place to place on the frontier, the postwar years were, on a personal level, a sad and bewildering period during which the general became totally estranged from his wife She eventually moved from Utah to California with most of their five surviving children.

What kind of a man was Connor?

Madsen portrays him as an impatient, hands-on, action-oriented, and unreflective sort of person who apparently wrote poorly, possessed few administrative skills, and spoke publicly in an uninspiring manner, although he was clearly able to lead men in a military setting. His entire business career— initially promising in California but ultimately unsuccessful in the Great Basin—was largely geared to employment or contracting situations involving government at the local, state, and federal levels. Although presumably a self-assured person, it is highly likely that throughout his life Connor in some way bore the psychological scars of prejudice against Irish Catholics. It is significant that the general chose to change his name from O'Connor to Connor and to emphasize his middle name (Edward) rather than his first name (Patrick). Although they never met, Brigham Young, a Vermont Yankee, could not resist the temptation to describe Connor to others as "Pat," a usage that probably did little to mute what became Connor's thirty-year vendetta with Utah's Mormon leaders. As a military officer, Connor chafed under bureaucracy and repeatedly displayed a penchant for summary executions where Indians were involved.

Although Glory Hunter has shortcomings, a lack of even-handness on Brigham Madsen's part is not among them as some reviewers have argued. Madsen describes General Connor's flat spots as well as his successes; he also points out the difficulties encountered by gentiles in living in an LDS dominated society now as well as during the nineteenth century.

Aside from Professor Madsen's uninspiring style and excessive attention to the details of some of Connor's minor business and civic involvements, perhaps this reviewer's greatest disappointment in Glory Hunter is over the author's reluctance to provide context for the injection of P Edward Connor and his Californians into Utah Territory in 1862. Barely mentioned are the fact that Lincoln's predecessor had ordered nearly one-third of the U.S. Army to Utah less than five years earlier and that with one minor exception—a mounted company called into federal service for ninety days—Lincoln was totally unwilling to activate the Nauvoo Legion (the nation's largest, most experienced militia force) to guard Utah's own communications links. For that matter, Glory Hunter is equally silent on the nature of the stage lines, mail contractors, road system, and telegraph line that the U.S. government was so intent on protecting.

Although handicapped by source limitations, what Brigham D. Madsen has done well is to soldier on with what material he has assiduously uncovered. His book—despite its unavoidably bloodless, two-dimensional portrait of Connor—is well worth reading It should stimulate biographies of other, even more senior (but forgotten) western officers for whom personal papers are also missing: Generals William S. Harney, Edwin V. Sumner, John E Wool, and David E Twiggs Limitations notwithstanding, Glory Hunter tells us more about P. Edward Connor than Margaret M. Fisher's Utah and the Civil War (1929), Fred B. Rogers's Soldiers of the Overland (1938), James F. Varley's Brigham and the Brigadier. General Patrick Connor and His California Volunteers in Utah and along the Overland Trail (1989), E. B. Long's The Saints and the Union, Utah Territory during the Civil War (1981), or Alvin M.Josephy, Jr.'s The Civil War in the American West (1991).

WILLIAM P MACKINNON Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

The Business of Newspapers on the Western Frontier.

By BARBARA CLOUD (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1992. xviii + 255 pp. $27.95.)

News media in the United States have served many purposes, but, as Barbara Cloud points out in her preface, they always have been businesses. Her readable book looks at the business conditions of founding and operating western newspapers between 1846 and 1890, covering the area from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast. She demonstrates that newspaper publishers even in the far reaches of the most remote frontier gave serious consideration to the economic aspects of their endeavors.

In the introductory chapter the author uses census data to present illuminating tables that correlate numbers of newspapers with population. She suggests that prospective publishers carefully considered not only the size of a market but also such factors as the financial prosperity of the population and its literacy, stability, and growth potential. Only rarely did someone start a newspaper for some highly personal reason, ignoring rational business considerations, in spite of the stereotype of the frontier editor as a colorful eccentric. In addition, success often had more to do with business acumen than with journalistic ability.

Extensive research has provided the author with multitudes of examples to illustrate the conditions of western newspaper publishing. Chapters on sources of income discuss methods of building circulation, attracting advertising, and providing job-printing services—a common activity of frontier publishers Chapters on expenses look at setting up a shop, staffing, finding material to print, and acquiring supplies The final chapters examine pressures on the press and assess its successes and failures, with a case study of the economic challenges faced by a hypothetical editor as he prepares to start a newspaper.

The author explains that she uses the masculine "he" advisedly, because the great majority of western publishers before 1890 were men, with women first entering western publishing in substantial numbers during the 1890s. However, at least 30 publications headed by women between 1854 and 1890 survive, and they could have provided examples comparable to those in the book, virtually all of which concern men While the examples add color and interest to the book, the reader might occasionally wonder if the two or three provided to support a particular point are representative.

The book offers detailed descriptions of what the newspapers looked like Illustrations would have enhanced these. One longs to see, for example, the nameplate of the Enterprise of Oxford, Idaho, which had figures of men reading newspapers draped among the letters of its name. The book has copious notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index.

A quotation in the concluding chapter reminds the reader that most frontier newspapers led precarious lives A county historian, writing about the La Porte, California, Mountain Messenger, stated, "The ground on which the building stands is very rich in gold, which gives the Messenger an advantage not often had by newspapers, of having a solid basis upon which to do business." This book builds a solid foundation for an understanding of the business side of the frontier press, without which no real understanding of the frontier press as a whole is possible.

SHERILYN C BENNION Humboldt State University Areata, California

Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West.

By JONI LOUISE KlNSEY. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992 x + 237 pp Paper, $34.95.)

This intriguing interdisciplinary study of three major paintings of Thomas Moran (1837-1926) offers new avenues for understanding how art influenced the way Americans perceived Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and the Colorado Rockies The author demonstrates that Moran's paintings were the product of a cooperative effort among the artist, government surveyors (Frederick Hayden and John Wesley Powell), railroad promoters, publishers of popular magazines, and photographers (William Henry Jackson and Frederick Dellenbaugh), all of whom benefited More important, she credits Moran with creating a new image of the West even as he reflected back to his American viewers their post-Civil War attitudes of suffering and self-renewal.

His most successful transformation, according to Kinsey, was his first Moran's The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872), she says, changed America's perception of that region from one of "hellish" mudpots reported by early explorers to a western "wonderland"—a place not to shun but to visit. Similarly, with The Chasm of the Colorado (1873-74) and Mountain of the Holy Cross (1875), the artist created images imitated in the popular press to such an extent that his views became the icons that defined these areas and attracted people to see them.

In Moran's Chasm of the Colorado the author finds reflected John Wesley's Powell's proposals for managing arid lands The tension of water as destroyer of the land through erosion and lifegiver through rain (a storm and rainbow over bare rock) is a central element of the painting. Less well known today is the remote Colorado mountain on which melting snows formed a cross each summer The scene was popularized after Moran painted it using artistic symbolism suggesting a pilgrimage of struggle and sacrifice through rugged terrain leading to salvation for body and soul. Moran's image became an icon for those promoting Colorado's mineral springs, which attracted hundreds seeking relief from respiratory ailments.

Moran's images helped create national parks for two of the sites and a national monument (rescinded in 1950) for the third. The railroads multiplied his images through reproductions in guide books to entice investors and tourists. In these ways art became the handmaiden of nationalism and commerce, but it was commerce (and a generous Congress that purchased two of the paintings at $10,000 each) that supported the creation of the national icons.

Moran, an American immigrant artist trained to imitate the brilliant colors and dramatic landscapes of painters such asJoseph M W Turner of his English homeland, found a moral order in the universe and a witness of the Divine in nature, including a cosmic tension, a struggle between disaster and grace. From American painters such as Thomas Cole, Moran learned that art can celebrate nationalism. The rocky landscapes of Moran's paintings, Kinsey argues, became visual substitutes for European castles and cathedrals as evidence of America's God-given greatness.

Kinsey's research is well-founded and her narrative clearly stated. At times her art history stretches to create a consistent interpretation, but her attempt to bring together insights from various disciplines enriches this handsome book. Enhanced by eight full-color plates and dozens of carefully selected illustrations to support the arguments of the text, this thoughtful study is worth the attention of students of the history and images of the American West.

GLEN M. LEONARD Farmington, Utah

The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

Edited by SHAWN LAY (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992 viii + 230 pp. $32.50.)

As a boy growing up in Salt Lake in the 1950s, I remember older people talking in hushed voices about the Ku Klux Klan—burning crosses in the hills behind the Capitol, meetings held at a trailer camp only a few blocks from where we lived, a robed presence in the mining camp at Bingham where many of my family and their friends worked I became aware that the Klan of the 1920s was not strictly a southern phenomenon, nor was its ideology linked simply to race. Inherent in people's remembrance of Klan activities—which they did not particularly approve of—was a sense that those attracted to the secret society had a larger and more fundamental agenda: providing order and stability in a period of change.

Recently a number of scholars have asserted what I sensed as a youth, arguing, in the words of Leonard J. Moore, that the Klan "acted as a kind of interest group for the average white Protestant who believed that his values should be dominant in American society." As much a populist as a terrorist organization, the Klan "became a means through which average citizens could resist elite political domination and attempt to make local and even state governments more responsible to popular interests." Moreover, while linked by a "common name and a commitment to secrecy," and epitomizing racism, intolerance, terrorism, and vigilantism, over the past century the Klan has not been a monolithic organization but has been characterized in each of its eras by "distinctive organizational features, recruiting patterns, and sociopolitical agendas."

The Klan of the 1920s, which developed between the specifically antiblack Klans of the 1860s and those of a century later, was a mass-based, nationwide, and politically successful organization with support from the American mainstream Reorganized in 1915, the Klan remained largely a southern institution until World War.

I During and after the war the Klan defended traditional standards of law, order, and social morality, focusing its wrath on Jews and Catholics as well as blacks United by a commitment to white supremacy and "pure Americanism," the Klan grew throughout the decade and had a major impact on the Democratic party.

Shawn Lay is a long-time student of Klan activities in Texas and New York. In this fine collection he brings together the work of several scholars who have turned their talents toward understanding the Invisible Empire in the American West. While readers of Utah Historical Quarterly will recognize the work of Larry Gerlach in chronicling the activities of the Klan in the Beehive State, Lay's collection sheds important light on Klan actions in Denver, El Paso, Anaheim, Eugene and La Grande, Oregon, as well as in Salt Lake City.

For Lay and his contributors understanding the Klan in the West rests with a case-study examination of the hooded empire at the local level Drawing upon membership lists, minutes, interviews, and local records, the contributors discovered that the Klan was an organization with a multifaceted appeal to a cross section of overwhelmingly Protestant people who were not on the social margins but in the mainstream. Consequently, the Klan was representative of larger populations and was shaped and influenced by local questions and local conditions.

As the essays in this book demonstrate, the Klan declined in the latter part of the 1920s for a variety of reasons, including personal scandals within the organization, the lack of skilled leaders, factionalism, opposition by significant local groups (in Utah especially the LDS church), and other factors. Lay and his colleagues downplay the traditional explanation of the support and growth of the Klan, including the rise of intolerance, rural-urban splits, ethno-cultural factors, etc., in favor of a more localized interpretation. At the same time, the scholars do not lose sight of the central issue of the racism and antiblack activity of the Klan which is part and parcel of the hooded empire in all of its incarnations. Indeed, Lay and other scholars who have studied the Klan place the secret society into a larger perspective without losing sight of its legacy of terrorism. As Lay admits, the essays raise as many questions as they answer but the solid research points the direction for future studies.

In evaluating the factors that produced support for the Klan in Anaheim, Christopher Cocoltchos offers an assessment that seems accurate for a broader understanding of the hooded empire in the West and throughout the country as well: "Anaheimers joined and supported the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s primarily because they hoped to create a more moral, law-abiding, better ordered, more balanced, and formally bound community In a very basic sense the Klan was attempting to transform the traditional informal social controls of small-town civic culture by intensely scrutinizing and regulating the behavior of the community residents."

JOHN R SILLITO Weber State University

Lives of the Saints in Southeast Idaho: An Introduction to Mormon Pioneer Life Story Writing.

By SUSAN HENDRICKS SWETNAM (MOSCOW: University of Idaho Press, 1991 188 pp Paper, $12.95.)

This fine study needs to be read by historians, folklorists, literature specialists, anthropologists, and family historians studying the Intermountain West and/or Mormon cultures. Written by an English professor at Idaho State University who is not a Latterday Saint, it argues that biographical and autobiographical writings by LDS pioneers and descendants in southeastern Idaho (1860-1920) deserve serious scholarly attention Her two purposes are to show the scholarly value of the genre and to introduce readers to the writings through generous excerpts. Using an Idaho Humanities Council grant, Swetnam appealed via groups and the media for the public to contribute personal, family, and place histories to the state archives and ISU library In response she received some 7,000 pages of materials in six months. Her book is based on 3,300 pages in 209 biographical, 87 autobiographical, and 5 unclassifiable LDS accounts Such narratives, in archives or private hands, are primary sources "ignored" due to historians' biases against LDS personal history, to folklorists' preference for oral over written stories, to perceptions that LDS life stories aim at uplift but not accuracy, and to the assumption that LDS life accounts are too personal to express cultural realities.

LDS autobiographies and biographies as a genre display particular conventions of content and form (Swetnam feels that church directives for Saints to write histories motivate and shape the narratives; but my autobiography and diary workshops show that such directives mainly reinforce and confirm those already underway.) I agree with Swetnam that these accounts are valuable because they contain details important for western history and for women's studies as well as unsolicited perceptions about a subculture that anthropologists and folklorists can assess They also contain several finely crafted narratives meriting literature specialists' attention LDS narrators, she found, did not pen "conventional spiritual biographies"; less than 10 percent reflected "pronounced shifting from chronicler to preacher."

Despite some moralizing, writers mainly desired "to save the memory of a world gone forever," to recall a "time lost." Their accounts, therefore, contain reasonably reliable information on such topics as settlement patterns, farming techniques, house building, furnishings, family relation- ships, religious interrelationships, and childrearing patterns. Narratives give readers "a detailed look at the way that ordinary people lived their lives" and a "psychological truth" about how they felt.

The author notes some unique themes common to LDS narrations: the westward journey which, unlike non-LDS renderings, is told with lofty, even epic overtones; divine help during trials; hardship stories told to reinforce a theme of "suffering-for-theGospel's-sake"; accounts of community cooperation; depictions of adept housekeepers and family happiness. No non-LDS accounts she collected contain divine intervention stories, but 99 LDS narratives do Stories of healings, promptings, and dreams serve didactically, she believes, to show what it means to be a good Mormon. LDS writers did not fabricate these "fantastic" stories but were "telling the truth as they see it," which fact shows "how pervasively a people's assumptions inform the group's most basic perceptions."

The author includes two chapters dealing with stories of "little rebellions" or "minor sticking points." She states that 20 percent of the documents contain mention of lapses, maverick tales, or quarrels. Told good-naturedly, the stories served as humor, as vents to let off steam about the church and its leaders, and to "give common sense" to some LDS "cheery myths." She explains that in a third of the biographies written by women a female forebear told of exceptions to LDS ideals of domestic abilities, feminine deportment, acceptance of church marriage teachings, obedience to males, and selfless service.

The authors of these accounts wrote biographies about twice as often as autobiographies Of 212 authors identifiable by gender, 162 were female and 50 male, leading her to suspect that Mormon "women are by and large the ones expected to be guardians of family history." (My analysis of some 200 LDS family histories published since 1970 agrees—women authored 5 out of 8. However, Davis Bitton's 2,800-plus entries in Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies indicate male writings outnumbered female by 5 to 1 or more.) Here males wrote twice as many autobiographies as biographies while females wrote twice as many biographies as autobiographies.

This book shows that LDS life story writings, in repositories or in private hands, are small gold mines for scholars who study the American West The afterword identifies several studies that could be made of this collection (and others). Lives of the Saints should cause those of us who teach autobiography, biography, or family history writing to reconsider how and what we teach The author provides endnotes for each chapter. Her bibliography contains not only the LDS narrations she cites but also a valuable list of publications that deal with the issues and controversies inherent in biographical and autobiographical writing.

WILLIAM G HARTLEY Brigham Young University

Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History.

Edited by GEORGE D SMITH (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992. x + 314 pp. Paper, $18.95.)

This collection of essays, all but two of which have been published previously, addresses the issue of the proper, appropriate, or best way to write Mormon history The lines of the debate separate those favoring "history in the service of faith" from those calling for "history faithful to the past." The controversy between traditional history and the new Mormon history, as it is called, has come to a head during the past two decades, years when the historical profession outside the Mormon community has exercised an increasingly strong influence upon the historians of Mormonism. The same years have witnessed a burst of intellectual energy directed toward discovering, understanding, and interpreting Mormon history. On the surface one might expect these developments to delight all parties involved—Mormons and interested non-Mormons alike Yet, in fact, the rise of the new Mormon history has generated intense controversy and produced official disapproval and ecclesiastical censure for some of its advocates This debate over the assumptions and methods of religious historians shows little sign of abating.

The editor of this volume has assembled representative statements from both sides of the controversy as well as essays from individuals commenting on the struggle The perspectives of the essayists vary widely, from Richard L Bushman's explicit call for the "spirit of Christ" as an operative principle in the life of the historian and Richard Sherlock's presentist conviction concerning the reality of God to Lawrence Foster's sharp criticisms of traditional Mormon historiography as "neither faith promoting nor good history" and D. Michael Quinn's frank, sometimes anguished autobiographical account of his intellectual odyssey from the center to the edge of Mormonism as a result of his role as a practitioner of the new Mormon history Commentary from outside this struggle is provided by Martin E Marty and Edwin S Gaustad, both distinguished historians of American religious history. The most shrill of all the essays is by David Earle Bohn, a self-proclaimed champion of the traditional perspective, who seeks to defend that historiographical position by a systematic attack on the epistemological and methodological assumptions of modern professional historians, including intellectual contempt for the notion that it is possible to achieve objectivity in the writing of history and almost personal disdain for the view of Lawrence Foster whom he singles out for special criticism.

George D Smith, the editor of this volume, is strangely silent on the ultimate purpose of this collection He adds to that confusion by his inclusion as an epilogue the personal testimony of the highly respected Leonard J. Arrington who seems to suggest the possibility of the faithful historian rising above the controversy simply by dint of personal religious and/or intellectual conviction.

More useful for all individuals attempting to write religious history from either a traditionalist perspective or a revisionist standpoint is the judgment of Martin E Marty and several other essayists that all historians come to their task with a certain critical preunderstanding that inevitably shapes their account of the past Recognition of that fact ought to induce a measure of intellectual humility in all parties.

STEPHEN J STEIN Indiana University Bloomington

Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology.

By ERICH ROBERT PAUL. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992 xii + 272 pp $29.95.)

This excellent volume could have been written only by a scholar competent not only in Mormon intellectual history but also in contemporary astrophysics and the history of modern science. Professor Paul of Dickinson College has produced a book that deserves the highest marks as an exposition of the attitude of Mormons toward science, the official and unofficial positions of the LDS church on major scientific developments, and the impact of science on the church and its theology Several chapters concentrate on the history of science to provide a background for Mormon conceptions of such items as age of the earth, the immensity of the universe, or the hassle over evolution in the church. Of individual Mormons, Orson Pratt and B H Roberts receive prime attention, which is entirely justified; and James E Talmage, John A Widtsoe,Joseph F. Merrill, and Joseph Fielding Smith figure prominently in the account of the twentieth-century disputes within the church.

Paul devotes extensive space to what he calls pluralistic cosmology in Mormon thought, the belief in an infinitely large universe with countless worlds that may be inhabited by intelligent beings. On this subject he quotes extensively from the Mormon scriptures and the early creators of Mormon doctrine and provides a rich diet of related philosophic speculation and scientific findings He brings things up to date with a late chapter on the technological problem of investigating extraterrestrial intelligence.

I am inclined to think that today's Mormons are not as interested in this sort of thing as were their antecedents in the nineteenth-century. This may be because of a decline in theological interest and a more mature disposition with respect to speculation I suspect that those who are joining the church in droves are more interested in what the church can do for them now in this life on this earth than in the state of anthropoid affairs in distant universes.

Paul has very effectively placed Orson Pratt in the context of Mormon theological speculation and the findings and speculations of nineteenth-century science. In his description of Pratt's talents in astronomy and mathematics, he calls attention to Pratt's severe limitations as an amateur scientist while clearly acknowledging his intellectual talents. His treatment of B. H. Roberts, the other leading intellectual in Mormon history, is equally competent While not in any sense a scientist, as a Mormon leader and the church's most prolific writer, Roberts was an influential exponent of science He and Talmage and Widtsoe, both scientists, had a strong impact on the Mormon people and church officialdom in opposing the antiscientific trends in Mormonism, especially in relation to evolution Paul fails, however, to point out clearly that these three advocates of science were severely impeded in their thought on evolution because of their failure to abandon the biblical literalism that saddled them with the creation myths of Genesis This accounts, for instance, for the nonsense about pre-Adamites that caused Roberts so much trouble.

There are a few things in the book that bother me: Paul's handling of such subjects as natural theology and realism and his frequent references to a Mormon epistemology, for instance. But these are minor items compared to the virtues of his book—his exposition of nineteenthcentury and post-Newtonian science, his cautious treatment of possible influences on Joseph Smith, and careful estimates of the strengths and weaknesses of the Mormon advocates of science. He makes a convincing case that from its beginnings the church has generally been proscience rather than antiscience in matters pertaining to religion In dealing with the internal conflicts, he touches the main bases, the hassle over evolution at Brigham Young University and the battle between B H Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith, for instance, as well as the more recent problems associated with Smith's antiscientific book, Man: His Origin and Destiny.

Paul does a good job in describing the limitations of science, especially with respect to religious thought, and the hazards of trying to make a scientific case for religion. He is fair and frank in treating the excesses of some Mormon writers, especially Widtsoe, in their enthusiasm for Mormon claims in relation to science. I personally think that on the whole he is a little too easy on the Mormon leadership in its handling of the science problem, and I suspect that he may be unaware of the extent of LDS opposition to intellectual advancement in some fields, biblical scholarship, for instance.

Professor Paul has done impressive research on his subject. His bibliographical essay alone is worth the price of the book.

STERLING M MCMURRIN University of Utah

Mirage-Land: Images of Nevada.

By WILBUR S. SHEPPERSON (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1992 xx + 190 pp $19.95.)

It is probable that every adult resident of Utah has developed some kind of impression, good or bad, about Nevada For some, it is a horrible place, a land of stark, ugly mountains and desolate valleys, of casinos and brothels—a perfectly appropriate choice for a nuclear waste dump. For others, who admire its solitude or enjoy slipping across the border for an evening of adventure, Nevada is a wonderful place, full of unusual beauty, promise, and hope Clearly, there are many images of Nevada, some positive and others negative, some grounded in fact and others based on nothing but illusion Wilbur S. Shepperson, one of Nevada's foremost historians, has woven hundreds of these images into a perceptive commentary about Nevada's land and people as they have been seen by its own citizens and by its many visitors.

The book contains six major chapters, each focusing on an important phase of the state's history. In less than two hundred pages, Shepperson moves from the days of Jedediah Smith and Peter Skene Ogden to the Comstock era, then to depression in the latter part of the nineteenth-century and partial recovery in the years after 1900, and finally to the emergence of the Nevada that we know today. Word images created by travelers' accounts, newspaper stories, and articles in popular journals reveal how people thought and felt about Nevada and how these attitudes changed through time Each major chapter concludes with a summary statement that places the events under discussion within a framework of western America's contemporary social and intellectual climate.

Shepperson's writing style is smooth, occasionally elegant, and always entertaining He combines the views of others with his own observations and never allows the reader to forget that life in Nevada has rarely followed the path of mainstream America. His final thought, that "contemporary Nevada, perhaps more than any other society in history, is the product of the present and a child of the grand illusion," is a straightforward declaration of the book's basic thrust.

There is little to criticize about this work Because it is interpretive in nature it naturally lacks depth, and readers seeking detailed analyses of major issues in Nevada's past should look elsewhere. A typographical error on p. 27 and failure to correctly locate the Metropolis reclamation project on p 81 are minor slips that detract very little from the book's overall quality. Shepperson has given us a thoughtful, well-crafted essay, blending his own wisdom with a sense of how others saw the state to make Mirage-Land indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand the Nevada of yesterday, today, and perhaps tomorrow.

MARSHALL E BOWEN Mary Washington College Fredericksburg, Virginia