In the last several years a wealth of information has been published on Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy. For some who were already well aware of this aspect of early Mormon history; the availability of new research and discovered documents has been a wellspring of further insight and knowledge into this topic. For others who are learning of Joseph’s marriages to other women for the first time; these books and online publications (including the LDS Church's recent Gospel Topics essays on the subject) can be both an information overload and a challenge to one's faith. In this short volume; Brian C. Hales (author of the 3-volume Joseph Smith’s Polygamy set) and Laura H. Hales wade through the murky waters of history to help bring some clarity to this episode of Mormonism’s past; examining both the theological explanations of the practice and the accounts of those who experienced it first hand. As this episode of Mormon history involved more than just Joseph and his first wife Emma; this volume also includes short biographies of the 36 women who were married to the Prophet but whose stories of faith; struggle; and courage have been largely forgotten and ignored over time. While we may never fully understand the details and reasons surrounding this practice; Brian and Laura Hales provide readers with an accessible; forthright; and faithful look into this challenging topic so that we can at least come toward a better understanding.
#539333 in Books PublicAffairs 2005-04-27 2005-04-26Format: International EditionOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x .75 x 5.00l; .82 #File Name: 1586483048320 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Excellent writer - good book!By quintessaHoffman is a great writer of much sensitivity. Great book.11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. A profound reflection on the Shoah- with a critical omissionBy Shalom FreedmanThis profound work is a reflection of a person of the ' second generation' the Holocaust. It contains a detailed and moving description of the kinds of ` learning' the children of survivors have gone through . It describes the particular burdens including ` significance envy ` that the second - generation lives with. It in the course of this is also a memoir in which Hoffman tells the story of her own parents and family.She describes what it meant to grow up first in Poland; then in Vancouver as the child of two people who had been saved by hiding during the war. It is a work written with great intellectual acuity and humane feeling. And its reflections on various themes related to the Shoah; such as emigration; or ' collective memory ' are deep and insightful.The book is so rich in thought and understanding that to quarrel with it seems somehow irreverent. But there is it seems to me a major omission in the work. The work centers on the relationship between the first and second generations. But how is it possible to speak of the Shoah without speaking of ` the third generation ` also? For clearly one of the major themes of many of the survivors is the theme of continuity of their own families and of the Jewish people. Here I think Hoffman under-emphasizes one major point about the Shoah. The Nazis aim was to destroy the Jewish people entirely. Therefore for many of the survivors the goal of building new families was strongly connected with the goal of keeping the Jewish people alive. Perhaps this was not so in Hoffman's own family. But it clearly is the case for a tremendous share of the survivors of the Holocaust. And thus surely one of the major questions for second- generation people is their own ' duty' to bring a ' third- generation into the world.I again want to emphasize the great value of this work. This review has not even touched upon most of its themes.I have been reading it through ' Yom HaShoah' in Israel and I will just add one thought here. And this I think is something that Hoffman also mentions. And it is how ' ungraspable ' the horror is; how ungraspable the immensity of the destruction; how ungraspable too the Evil of the perpetrators; and how ungraspable the fact that so many of the survivors did manage to make ' new lives'.This work in a way is a work of tribute by a child of survivors to those who did manage to somehow; living with all the nightmares and taking them with them to the grave ; make new lives.
