I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be up front here, I do not normally purchase books published by Signature Books, due to the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s controversial place in Current Mormon Culture. So you can read all my comments as someone who is biased by their culture to have a disposition to dislike Signature Books.<\/p>\n
That said, Every Latter-day Saint who has even a remote interest in Church History should own at least this book. I am about 50 pages in and so far it has given me an insider\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s view of: The Zion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Camp affair, the Kirtland Safety Society, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Early Temple worship, The Endowment, The 12\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mission to UK, The Book of Abraham, and more. Woodruff is incredibly articulate and Staker does an excellent job of abridging the text to keep the pace quick and interesting. <\/p>\n
Some highlights: <\/p>\n
1.<\/strong>\tWhen Joseph Smith is imprisoned in relation to Zion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Camp, Woodruff does not blame the Missourians, but puts Boggs response in the context of a man reacting to false reports of Thomas Marsh and Orson Hyde. Further He blames General Hinckle for surrendering the leadership. I do not know much about the events around Zion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Camp, but it is interesting to me that from Woodruff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective the fault was with the saints as much as with anyone else. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong>\tThe initial temple ceremony in Kirtland was days long, and Woodruff makes it so exciting! His spiritual battle to overcome Satan he relays in the middle of this event is simply fascinating and moving as an example of the powers of spiritual brotherhood. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong>\tMissionary work has changed. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think we can understand just how incredible the Mission to UK by the 12 was as we read it through our modern cultural lense. 1st, no one cares that these were apostles. 2nd, they had no money, 3rd, there were no churches or congregations waiting for them, not even 1 single member 4th, they baptized thousands! Wilford Woodruff acquired chapels for the Church by baptizing the Pastor and gaining the building! <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong>\tWilford Woodruff recorded the visions and thoughts of early LDS sisters with the view that they were as interesting and important as the sermons of Joseph Smith. There is an especially poignant recording from the vision of one Eliza Bromley (Who I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d love to know who she is!) where she notes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your tears number more than your enemies.” Followed by an urgent petition to love our enemies. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beautiful and compelling, and Woodruff took it in as from God. He calls women prophetesses, and he draws strength from them. As a father of girls, I love these vignettes of powerful LDS women I can share with my daughters in years to come.<\/p>\n Some regrets:<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong>\tThe Introduction is unfortunate, in that Staker begins basically by telling us all the reasons her primary market, the LDS base, should not purchase this book. She only made it to get money, she sets herself up as not really liking Woodruff, and speculating that he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like her or this book. She calls her labors on this project a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153confinement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and herself \u00e2\u20ac\u0153skeptical\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the truth claims Woodruff lived for. Basically she is saying she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really give a crap about Woodruff, and all in the first few paragraphs of her introduction! This is unfortunate because it really hurts her overall goal of selling more copies of this book. If another edition of this book is ever published, I would suggest the introduction focus more on Woodruff (and in a more complementary fashion) and less on his editor. (I have intentionally started my post hypocritically in the same fashion I feel , as an effort to make this point more clear)<\/p>\n 2.<\/strong>\tThe Cover suffers the same problem as do many of the covers to Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon thought, in that they fail to make any effort to appeal to the general aesthetics of the Mormon Base, which should be the primary market. The cover features a photo of Woodruff in tones of Yellow with one Eye in Red, almost denoting it as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evil eye\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and has a picture of some sort of Red Army, perhaps some sort of Apocalyptic Army in reference to the last days and the Title of the book? In any case, the cover does not scream, this is Woodruff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life in his own words, check it out, but instead seems to want to imply something sinister in the contents. My guess, is the cover artist at most read the first few paragraphs of the introduction as a basis for inspiration, and may have only been given the title of the book. In any case, the cover sucks, not as bad as the cover of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shaken faith syndrome\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but it definitely makes no effort to appeal to mainstream Mormonism, which again is sad, because the book is awesome!<\/p>\n 3.<\/strong>\tMy only editorial gripe on the contents is that when Sarah Emma dies, Wilford records the entirety of his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter in his journal to track the event, but this edition omits his own thoughts on it, as Spartan as they admittedly are. All Wilford had to say, according the Church Manual on the event was : <\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Other than copying Phoebe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter, Elder Woodruff wrote very little about his daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passing. He merely said that Sarah Emma had been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153taken from time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that she was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gone to be seen no more in this life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t very much, It atleast gives Woodruff the impression of having thought on his daughter, which is somewhat lacking in the break neck speed of the current edition.<\/p>\n In Conclusion, I stand by what I said, everyone should own this book who is interested in Church History. Staker does an excellent Job of making Woodruff very readable, and the ride is incredible! So ignore the cover, ignore the introduction, and if you are a biased goat like me, ignore the publisher, but check this book out. You won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t regret it.<\/p>\n