Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse
Christopher James Blythe
Feb 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Christopher Grove
headphones
Audiobook
12 hr 49 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 1 hr 16 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
The relationship between early Mormons and the US was marked by anxiety and hostility. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints looked forward to apocalyptic events that would unseat corrupt governments across the globe. Mormons envisioned divine deliverance by way of plagues, natural disasters, foreign invasions, American Indian raids, slave uprisings, or civil war unleashed on American people. For the Saints, these violent images promised a national rebirth that would vouchsafe the protections of the US Constitution and end their oppression. In Terrible Revolution, Christopher James Blythe examines apocalypticism across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The responses of the church hierarchy to apocalyptic lay prophecies promoted their own form of separatist nationalism during the nineteenth century. Yet, after Utah obtained statehood, as the church sought to assimilate to national religious norms, these same leaders sought to lessen the tensions between themselves and American political and cultural powers. As a result, visions of a violent end to the nation became a liability to disavow. Ultimately, Blythe argues that the visionary world of early Mormonism, with its apocalyptic emphases, continued in the church's mainstream culture in modified forms but continued to maintain separatist radical forms at the level of folk-belief.
About the author
Christopher James Blythe is a research associate at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. He is the editor of the Journal of Mormon History and was a documentary editor at the Joseph Smith Papers from 2015 to 2018.
Christopher Grove is an award-winning, veteran actor and narrator based in Los Angeles. He guest-stars on top network TV shows and has performed at major theaters around the country, including the Mark Taper Forum and the Public Theater.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
