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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 91-104_UHQ BReviews/pp.271-296 12/5/12 9:50 AM Page 95 BOOK REVIEWS although interesting, seems a bit out of place because all of the other documents in the book relate to the 1871-72 expeditions and beyond. Of interest is the story of how Summer’s diary arrived at the office of the Missouri Democrat. This book, along with the series about Powell, represents an important contribution to the literature of western American exploration, especially of the Colorado Plateau. Being able to purchase all six of these accounts in one volume is definitely a plus. BRAD COLE Utah State University Playing with Shadows:Voices of Dissent in the Mormon West. Edited by Polly Aird, Jeff Nichols, and Will Bagley. (Norman: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2011. 518 pp. Cloth, $45.00.) THE TITLE FOR THIS BOOK, Playing With Shadows, comes from an 1853 warning by Brigham Young to followers of Gladden Bishop, “…not [to] court persecution for…you are not playing with shadows, but it is the voice of the Almighty you are tr ying to play with…” (5). Playing with Shadows, Volume 13 in the Arthur H. Clark series Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier, provides an introduction and an afterword in which the editors recount the story of dissent within the Mormon faith from the period of Joseph Smith to the end of the nineteenth century. The writings of George Armstrong Hicks, Charles Derry, Ann Gordge, and Brigham Young Hampton comprise the bulk of the book with the Hicks, Derry, and Gordge accounts from reminiscences, whereas Hampton’s is from a diary. The editors introduce each individual and provide excellent and abundant footnotes to explain the events and people identified in the accounts. The first story is that of George Armstrong Hicks, a man who had his differences with both Brigham Young and Erastus Snow. Hicks is perhaps best known for his ballad, “Once I Lived in Cottonwood.” Polly Aird explains that he never lived in Cottonwood but moved to Utah’s Dixie from Palmyra, Utah. His story begins with an excellent description of how he was just a common worker, “…one of the hewers of wood and drawers of water” (83). He then discusses his family joining Mormonism, his life in Palmyra, his move to southern Utah, his problems with Erastus Snow when Snow refused to give him some flour, and also with Brigham Young concerning the Mountain Meadows Massacre and other matters. He was excommunicated from the LDS church but returned late in life. 95 |
