Customer Reviews (1)

Fantastic, reference of LDS history.
Yes I know it's expensive. But it has it all. This the best LDS history book I've ever seen. I am a member of the church and returned missionary who has studied a lot of church history. What I like best about this book is the extensive timeline comparison with world history, US history and Church history in chronological order so you can compare what was happening in each, also in depth research, vast information resource and it includes unique stories as well as well known history. (...) ... Read more

Product Description
Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1974: Revised and Enlarged. Hardcover Spiral Bound. Dark Navy Blue Color. 1974 Third Edition. 10-7/8" x 7-3/4" x 1-1/4". Weight = 3 lbs. ISBN 0741948737. Special Limited Edition. ... Read more

Product Description
8 volume set ... Read more

Book Description
oversized, unique portrait of the Mormons at work, worship, and play includes essays by the church's fifteenth prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, and others. 100,000 first printing.

The Mission is an extraordinary look by a team of international photojournalists at the customs, culture and spirit of the people of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. Over the course of a year, fifty of the world's most talented photographers journeyed to six continents and were given unprecedented access to Church members. They accompanied them on their missions; slept in their homes; and attended their baptisms, weddings, summer camps, church services, and funerals. They shared family home evenings, parades, and festivals. They laughed with them, and sometimes cried with them. The result is a collection of many never-before-seen photographs that create a riveting and entirely human portrait of the Church through the lives of its faithful. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Neat pictures, not much info
The title would lead one to believe that this book would help explain the foundation and workings of the Mormon faith. This is not the case. The limited text supplies the reader with just a basic explanation of what is being depicted in the photo. This is a good book for someone just interested in getting a superficial intro to this belief system, but nothing more.

Seeing is believeing!
This book is one of those great coffee table books that are eye candy.Adam Smith in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" discusses how vision is the key to moral actions, and this book helps spur the Saints on to better works by the photographed examples.It really covers the ground and the gamut of the life of the Saints...

Not a lot of text or theology here, except for the text of truth that every good act writes in reality...

A very REAL book
Leaving the issues for apostates and apologists to bicker over, this book simply looks at the lives of people actually in the church: what they do in their normal every day lives. I especially liked the depictions of Latter-Day Saints in nations outside the United States, including the temple trip down the Amazon and a few shots of Victoria Peak! Beliver or no, these pictures tell 10,000 words about a people that are industrious, optimistic, and compassionate. These photos aver that while many continue to criticize and ostracize this church, the Latter-Day Saints frequently hold the moral/ethical highground on their idealogical opponents. How many other 200-year old American religions would stand under this kind of across-the-globe scrutiny? This book contains real, in your face, irrefutable evidence that like them nor not, the Mormons are indeed a "peculiar people."

A very REAL book
Leaving the issues for apostates and apologists to bicker over, this book simply looks at the lives of people actually in the church: what they do in their normal every day lives. I especially liked the depictions of Latter-Day Saints in nations outside the United States, including the temple trip down the Amazon and a few shots of Victoria Peak! Beliver or no, these pictures tell 10,000 words about a people that are industrious, optimistic, and compassionate. These photos aver that while many continue to criticize and ostracize this church, the Latter-Day Saints frequently hold the moral/ethical highground on their idealogical opponents. How many other 200-year old American religions would stand under this kind of across-the-globe scrutiny? This book contains real, in your face, irrefutable evidence that like them nor not, the Mormons are indeed a "peculiar people."

Accurate
Not only does this book have good pictures, it also has accurate information.It is a good place to go to in order to find accurate information about the LDS church. ... Read more

Product Description
'History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'' with an introduction and notes by B. H. Roberts. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company: 1974-76. Comprehensive six volume set with additional index volume. Second edition revised and published for the church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in New York on 6 April 1830 after a series of revelations including one proclaiming that he join no existing church. In the Church's first decade, the main body of Saints moved from New York to the Mid-West due to religious persecution. Most members eventually followed prophet and president Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley, where they settled a large area of the western United States. Volumes offer a ''complete history of the facts in which the Church...had its origin...and all circumstances, experiences and trials through which it passed.'' ... Read more

Book Description
This is the story of the Latter-day Saints, the story of when God came back to earth and started things over.In person. It may be the most confident message of God in centuries.Written with the non-Latter-day Saint reader firmly in mind, yet free of proselytory pretense, Latter Days goes right to the mind and heart of this religion, exploring an utterly unique catalogue of Christian doctrine regarding the purpose of human existence and destiny.It gives the Mormon story of the creation of this world and lays out what Mormons believe is the divine plan for mankind, from Adam to Noah to Christ to Joseph Smith to Brigham Young.It relates the astonishing story of their great Exodus, as they were driven from the supposedly civilized United States to the wilderness of the Salt Lake-a truly remarkable story that most of us were not taught in our high school history books.AUTHORBIO: A convert in his late teens to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Coke Newell graduated from the journalism program at Colorado State University. For most of a decade a media spokesman for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, he has authored or contributed to a number of books and periodicals and has been quoted extensively on Church policy, history and doctrine. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

An LDS Public Relations Hack Spins Mormon History
This review was done for the hardback edition (and is submitted here due to the fact that Amazon does not transfer reviews of the same title, hardcover to paperback).

This book is clearly a response to Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, by Richard and Joan Ostling. Now I will readily admit that this is a serious accusation, and that I will never be able to ever prove a thing, yet it has the "fingerprints" of the LDS Church public relations department all over the book. Consider the following,

* The author admits both on the dust jacket and in the preface that he works presently (as he has for nearly a decade) for the LDS Church as an "international public relations officer at world headquarters in Salt Lake City."

* The author in the acknowledgments thanks (and I quote) "At the headquarters offices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint: Brian D. Garner of the Church Educational System, and Ronald O. ("Omivorous") Barney of the Historical department for their close reading of the manuscript, sought for both to keep me accurate and to keep me employed...". This is clearly an admission that continued employment by the LDS Church requires that he not write anything that would displease his employers.

* At the end of the book is a "Selected Bibliography"; it should be called a "Selective Bibliography". Only two out of the 18 bibliographic references given were to non-Mormon publishers. AND, even at that, one of the two non-Mormon references was to The Encyclopedia of Mormonism published by Macmillan, but produced under the independent editorial control of Mormon apologist Daniel H. Ludlow (i.e. Macmillan gave Ludlow final say on what went to press). While BYU Studies was mentioned, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History and Sunstone were omitted from bibliography. What makes the omission of Dialogue and Suntone odd is that the are mentioned in what passes for footnotes in 3-4 spots in the text (for example, Dialogue is cited on page 145n299, and then again on page 160n330; Sunstone is cited on page 165n339).

Yet what most clearly seems to identify this book as a reply to Mormon America is this remark on page xiv. "Those books written by outsiders to the Latter-day Saints' faith and employing a reasonable range of objectivity vary widely in their ability to get it right, to really comprehend LDS thought and doctrine...Those texts written by dissidents, or even by objective outsiders who surrender to some odd compulsion to get their "research" from the mouths of such dissidents, continually end up with the same dirty water, contaminated and dangerously unreliable. (Would you study Catholicism at the knee of a rabbi?)"

Admittedly, the endnotes in Mormon America that go on for 30 pages include "controversial facts and opinion" about LDS Church history and doctrine (included in their "For Further Reading" section, the Ostlings' include many titles about the same by faithful Latter-day Saints; nearly 6 full pages in all). Unlike the author of Latter Days however, the Ostlings' have more faith and trust in the intelligence of their readers.

Additionally, the treatment of two well-known figures from early Mormonism in Latter Days tipped me off to the author's inclination to distort historical fact for partisan religious advantage (and might I add, to the disadvantage of those that can no longer speak for themselves). The first figure is none other than Emma Hale Smith, the wife of Mormon Prophet and Founder, Joseph Smith. Beginning on page 130, the author writes, quoting an early LDS Church leader, "Many people have turned away from the truth because things did not come exactly to suit them...Emma Smith, for example." This is an unalloyed a slur against a woman who, like Hillary Clinton, stood by her man. And Emma was not merely "discomforted" (the adjective the author uses) with the principle of polygamy, she was diametrically opposed to the practice. Indeed, the women's organization (the Relief Society) was disbanded in part because it was being utilized to rally opposition against polygamy. The first president of the Relief Society? Emma Smith. And finally, in one final attempt (and a rather ghoulish one at that) to discredit Emma Smith, the author alleges that in her attempt to make a break from the LDS Church, she attempted to literally take her dead husband with her. And while Mary Fielding Smith, the widow of Hyrum Smith, Josephs' brother that was killed along with him at the same time, was not invited to a private reburial of the their bodies, she did know for a fact of the whereabouts. The primary consideration of Emma here was that the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum not be dug up and desecrated by their enemies.

The other individual that comes in for rough treatment is Oliver Cowdery, the scribe for Smith during the "translation" of the Book of Mormon, the Second Elder and Assistant President of the LDS Church. Starting on page 86, the author writes that "by midsummer, the threats to the church were not only external but internal. Four church officers, including...Oliver Cowdery were found profiting from funds designated for helping the poor incoming settlers, and excommunicated. In his own way, each began to retaliate." Since the author does not state who the other three church officers were, nor does he even so much as leave a citation to this unsubstantiated allegation, we the readers are left to wonder. Nor is the author any more specific about how "each began to retaliate."

Please, if you want to learn more about LDS Church history and doctrine, there are many titles available to choose from, even some by faithful, believing and observant members of the Church. One such book, The Mormon Experience: A History of Latter-Day Saints, by Leonard Arrington (now deceased) and Davis Bitton (and published by the more discriminating University of Illinois Press) available from Amazon, not only cost less (so you can do like I do and buy more books from Amazon), but is a more balanced account of LDS Church history and doctrine.

Very Readable and Informative
This book is an appealing review of both Latter Day Saint history and doctrines.It is written in a clear and familiar way.It has helped me articulate for others why I chose to join the Mormon church.

superb
This is an excellent read.Coke can paint a picture that draws you in.If you think his writing is good, he can keep you on the edge of your seat as an audience member.The man is gifted.

A GREAT BOOK TO ANY SERIOUS PERSON
i think its great that a book was finally written about our gloriuos faith!!!

The truth is revealed!!!

I am sick and tired of all these satanists and "Christians" telling us we are bad when we are so much better than them.
They dishonor the sabath, disgrace their bodies, swear, drink, smoke , and commit fornification so easily and then just "REPENT", No
Its is not a true repentence if you do it again and learn nothing from it!

GOOD JOB BROTHER NEWELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent but seriously flawed
This is an excellent presentation of what Mormons are taught to believe and what most do indeed still believe, worded in the sacred tone in which Mormons have learned to appreciate and revere it, but this is accomplished by injuring, skating past and ignoring various historical and scientific discoveries that unhappily disengage from important parts of the official story line. To get the most balanced perspective, the reader may want to read this alongside of that of another insider, Grant H. Palmer, whose more recent book, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, conducts the reader on a backstage tour, explaining how the current extravaganza was put together over time. ... Read more

Book Description
1845. This pamphlet is a clever discourse between Joseph Smith and the Devil about how the Mormons are disrupting the world of Christendom, which in turn is disrupting the Devil's power over earth. ... Read more

Product Description
appears to be reprint of 1949 edition, second edition revised. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is the interperative History of the Church of Christ.
This is the interpretative history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, written by B. H. Roberts to commemorate the Church's centennial in 1930.It differs from the "History of the Church," also known also as the "Documentary History of the Church," because the straightforward history of the Church is just Joseph Smith's history and journals-raw data-but does not have any analysis or explanation.Moreover, the straightforward History of the Church only covers 1805-1844, with a seventh volume covering the exodus, while the Comprehensive History of the Church covers 1830-1930.

Both are good, and you have Elder Roberts' keen eye and sharp mind handling some of the most intense times, spiritually speaking, in the history of the world. ... Read more

Book Description
Containing The Revelations For The Building Up Of The Kingdom Of God In The Last Days. ... Read more