Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Richard Lyman Bushman

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Dec 18, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 784 pages

Founder of the largest indigenous Christian church in American history, Joseph Smith published the 584-page Book of Mormon when he was twenty-three and went on to organize a church, found cities, and attract thousands of followers before his violent death at age thirty-eight. Richard Bushman, an esteemed cultural historian and a practicing Mormon, moves beyond the popular stereotype of Smith as a colorful fraud to explore his personality, his relationships with others, and how he received revelations. An arresting narrative of the birth of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling also brilliantly evaluates the prophet’s bold contributions to Christian theology and his cultural place in the modern world.

Contents

• Prologue: 3
• To 1816: 8
• 181627: 30
• 182730: 57
• 1830: 84
• 1830: 109
• 1830: 127
• JanuaryJune 1831: 144
• JulyDecember 1831: 161
• 1832: 177
• 183233: 195
• 1833: 215
• 1834: 231
• 183435: 251
• 1835: 270
• 1835: 279
• AugustDecember 1835: 294
• JanuaryApril 1836: 305
• April 1836January 1838: 322
• JanuaryJuly 1838: 342
• AugustDecember 1838: 356
• JanuaryAugust 1839: 373
• September 1839June 1840: 391
• April 1840April 1841: 403
• 1841: 417
• Spring 1842: 436
• MayDecember 1842: 459
• 1843: 482
• 184344: 500
• JanuaryJune 1844: 526
• Epilogue: 551
• Sources Cited: 667
• Illustration Credits: 718

About the author

Richard L. Bushman was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1931. He took his B.A., M.A., and PhD. degrees at Harvard University. He has taught at Brigham Young University, Boston University, University of Delaware, and Columbia University, where he is currently Gouverneur Morris Professor of History, Emeritus. His previous books are From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 (1967), Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984), King and People in Provincial Massachusetts (1985), and The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, and Cities (1992).

Bibliographic information

• Title: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
• Author: Richard Lyman Bushman
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007
• ISBN: 0307426483, 9780307426482
• Length: 784 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Religious; History / United States / 19th Century; Religion / Christianity / Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)