Book Notices

From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer.

Edited by BRUCE N WESTERGREN (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995 xvi +107 pp $24.95.)

The editor provides valuable historical and biographical information in his footnotes. His introduction details the provenance of the manuscript (this is its fourth time in print) and of the life and the role of Joh n Whitmer in the early Mormon movement. One of eight witnesses to the Book ofMormon, a charter member of the new church, he was called by "revelation" (1831) to keep a history of "The Church of Christ," an assignment he took very seriously.

His early writings reflect a true believer's intimate perspective of the movement, including events in New York prior to the move to Ohio, and the text of several of Joseph Smith's revelations. Especially useful are his accounts of the Missouri troubles with copies of correspondence and petitions between Mormon leaders and state and federal officials.

Whitmer became disillusioned with Smith and was excommunicated in March 1838. Thereafter, he wrote briefly from hearsay and secondhand sources of the rise and fall of Nauvoo and the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

Whitmer blamed the church's problems on polygamy, the "Danite" band, Joseph's "lust," and the "vile behavior" of Saints toward non-Mormons. He died in 1878, faithful to his Book of Mormon witness but unaffiliated with the "Restoration Movement."

When Truth was Treason: German Youth against Hitler.

Compiled, translated and edited by BLAIR R. HOLMES and ALAN F KEELE (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995 xxix + 425 pp $34.95.)

Since World War II Utahns have been fascinated by the account of Helmuth Hubener and his two friends, Rudi Wobbe and Karl Heinz Schnibbe All three were members of the same Mormon branch in Hamburg and all three were tried for high treason by the Nazi regime in 1942 Their crime was the distribution of anti-war and antiHitler flyers. The seventeen-year-old Hubener was executed by a guillotine on October 27, 1942. Wobbe and Schnibbe were given ten- and five-year prison sentences, respectively. Both men survived the war and immigrated to Salt Lake City in the early 1950s

Helmuth Hubene r has been honored in Germany, in the United States, and throughout the world as a hero and martyr of the German Resistance Movement. In recent years both Wobbe and Schnibbe published accounts of their ordeal and eventual immigration to Utah This volume includes the Schnibbe account. What makes it of exceptional value are the detailed notes and insightful documents, many of them translated from the original German by BYU scholars Blair Holmes and Alan F. Keele. The insightful foreword by Klaus J Hansen, author of Mormonism and the American Experience, who was a child in Germany during the Hitler years, is an added bonus to this fine volume.

The Jeffersonian Dream: Studies in the History of American Land Policy and Development.

By PAUL W GATES Edited by ALLAN G. BOGUE and MARGARET BEATTIE BOGUE (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press in cooperation with the University of New Mexico Center for the American West, 1996. xx + 172 pp. $42.50.)

The Bogues have gathered nine previously published essays that represent the quality, relevance, and diversity of research and writing from Paul Gates, the nation's preeminent public-lands historian. Utahns and other westerners will find particular interest in Chapter 8, "The Intermountain West against Itself," wherein Professor Gates traces the process behind the abandonment of the small farm movement originally embodied by the Reclamation Act of 1902.

The Military and United States Indian Policy, 1865-1903.

By ROBERT WOOSTER. (1988; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995 xiv + 268 pp Paper, $10.95.)

The post-Civil War military faced a series of challenges in addition to those provided by Indians on the plains and in the Southwest. Strong-willed individualistic commanders, political squabbling, presidential and congressional shifts in policy, and an uncontrolled civilian desire for land only aggravated the problems of a shrinking army and vague guidelines as to how to wage "total war" against an elusive foe Wooster believes the experience of the Civil War did little to prepare the military for what it encountered. He also argues against a unified military plan to destroy the buffalo, pointing out that in reality the army operated in a haphazard fashion with major decisions left to local commanders While the reader may not agree with all of the author's interpretations, he has nevertheless provided the grist for renewed evaluation of the military's role in the settlement of the West.

Lora Webb Nichols: Homesteader's Daughter, Miner's Bride.

Compiled and written by NANCY F ANDERSON from the personal papers of Lora Webb Nichols (Caldwell, Ida.: Caxton Printers, 1995. xxviii + 296 pp. Paper, $14.95.)

Encampment in south central Wyoming is the setting for this history based on the diary and memoir of Lora Nichols (1883-1962), a precocious and genteel young woman who came of age as her community and family made the adjustment from homesteading to mining

The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831-1836.

Edited by JAN SHIPPS and JOHN W. WELCH. (Provo and Urbana: BYU Studies, Brigham Young University, and University of Illinois Press, 1994 xxii + 520 pp $29.95.)

The life of William E McLellin, early convert to Mormonism, Mormon apostle, and later church dissenter, has been largely unknown to historians until recently The discovery of his journals and a few other documents from the period of his brief association with the Latter-day Saints and their publication in this well-researched and thoroughly documented volume should change that Far less than one-half of this volume is made up of the actual journals The rest is commentary and essays by scholars schooled in early Mormon history.

The discovery of this archive is doubly important, however, because of its connection to the infamous forger and murderer Mark Hofmann. Among Hofmann's inventions (if not among his forgeries) was a mythical McLellin collection Indeed, one of his victims expected to take possession of this nonexistent collection on the day a pipe bomb exploded at his office door Ironically, the collection need not have been invented It was real, held in Salt Lake City for nearly eighty years. No one, however, including the collection's custodians at LDS church headquarters, knew about it. It had been in the First Presidency's vaults, uncataloged and gradually forgotten, since 1908.

Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United States.

Edited by DAVID J WHITTAKER (Provo: BYU Studies, Brigham Young University, 1995 xii + 695 pp $29.95.)

This guide includes, under one cover, a useful summary of significant sources for the study of Mormonism It consists of brief bibliographic essays, guides to selected repositories, and essays on selected "special topics." The guide section includes chapters on fourteen repositories in the western United States and six in the East. These chapters are uneven; the repositories with larger Mormon collections, including those in Utah, have more general descriptions Others include detailed descriptions of relatively small collections of Mormon-related material. Surprisingly, the Guide does not include a chapter on the holdings of the National Archives but treats its Mormon materials in part of a paragraph in a chapter on additional repositories.

The ten chapters devoted to special topics include essays on material cultural, architectural records, Mormon emigration trails, folklore, literature, photo archives, museums and historic sites, the performing arts, science and technology, and visual arts. This topical approach overlaps, but nicely complements, the repository chapters.

This work will become a necessary companion for any serious student of Mormon history.

Treading in the Past: Sandals of the Anasazi.

Edited by KATHYKANKAINAN Photographs by LAUREL CASJENS (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Natural History in association with the University of Utah Press, 1995. x + 199 pp. Cloth, $50.00; paper $29.95.)

Among its diverse holdings the Utah Museum of Natural History has stewardship of a large collection of ancient sandals from southern Utah and northern Arizona. These sandals are the subject of the volume Treading in the Past, which serves as more than just a catalog for a temporary museum exhibition of the same name The volume presents short but insightful background chapters by textile expert and volume editor Kathy Kankainan, textile expert and archaeologist Elizabeth Ann Morris, archaeologist Duncan Metcalfe, and biologist Richard Holloway The greatest value of the volume, however, lies in its numerous illustrations: line drawings by artist Margaret Carde and more than three hundre d exquisite full-color photographs by curator and photographer Laurel Casjens Detailed object-byobject descriptions make this an invaluable research tool for serious students of ancient sandalry and Anasazi culture, while the background chapters and high-quality photographs will please the eye and stimulate the imagination of anyone interested in ancient artifacts and the people who made and used them This is a fine example of how museums can responsibly share their collections with people of various backgrounds and interest levels without compromising the objects themselves.

Bravos of the West. By

JOHN MYERS MYERS. (1962; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995 xii + 467 pp Pater, $15.00.)

Beginning with the Jackson-Benton feud of 1813, this free-wheeling narrative whisks the reader through two generations of overstated Wild West history. All the stars and supporting cast are there—Mike Fink, Jim Bowie, Jim Bridger, Peg-leg Smith, Sam Houston, Brigham Young, and dozens of other bravos—hamming it up for the reading audience of the early 1960s. Impressionistic and episodic, this work is short on interpretation and analysis but long on entertainment Since Clio wrought the basic material for this book while in a holiday mood, muses the author, "it did not seem fitting to freight the work with the scholarly lading of notes and an index." Perhaps more valuable as historiography than history, this Bison. Book edition of Bravos no doubt deserves a spot somewhere on the collector's bookshelf.

William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West.

By ROBERT G ATHEARN (1956; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. xx + 371 pp Paper, $17.95.)

This classic study of the role played by the army, the railroad, and one man—William Tecumseh Sherman— in the post-Civil War settlement of the American West is an important contribution to frontier history. The book is more than a catalog of Indian conflict and military might Rather, it is a thoughtful look at the powerful political, social, economic, and military forces that played across the nation during this period. As the regional and later national head of the military, Sherman assumed a pivotal role in determining the shape that these events would take. While most famous for his Civil War march through Georgia, Sherman probably had a greater impact on American history in supporting railroad expansion as a means of encouraging white settlement while at the same time defeating the Plains Indians. His trials and successes are the theme of this book.

Sherman is recommended for historians and a general audience interested in the American West, in political forces that affect military decisionmaking, and in a biographical approach to writing history.