Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

Benjamin E. Park

Mar 2020 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Bob Souer

About this audiobook

An extraordinary story of faith and violence in nineteenth-century America, based on previously confidential documents from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park re-creates the Mormons' 1839 flight from Missouri to Illinois. There, under the charismatic leadership of Joseph Smith, they founded Nauvoo, which shimmered briefly-but Smith's challenge to democratic traditions, as well as his new doctrine of polygamy, would bring about its fall. His wife Emma, rarely written about, opposed him, but the greater threat came from without: in 1844, a mob murdered Joseph, precipitating the Mormon trek to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows that far from being outsiders, the Mormons were representative of their era in their distrust of democracy and their attempt to forge a sovereign society of their own.

About the author

Benjamin E. Park is associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University. The author of American Nationalisms and Kingdom of Nauvoo, he has written for the Washington Post, Newsweek, and Houston Chronicle. He lives in Conroe, Texas.

Bob Souer is a full-time professional storyteller and narrator. He has narrated numerous audiobooks, as well as broadcast and nonbroadcast projects for corporations and ministries across North America. You've heard Bob's voice on CBS, PBS, the History Channel, and many other networks.