Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History

Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History
Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages : 410
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0806135611
ISBN-13 : 9780806135618
Rating : 4/5 (11 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History by : Gary Topping

Download or read book Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History written by Gary Topping and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among historians of Utah and the American West, few names have greater resonance than Bernard DeVoto, Dale Morgan, Juanita Brooks, Wallace Stegner, and Fawn Brodie. Each of these writers made enduring contributions not only to our knowledge of the American West but also to our view of the region and its history. In many ways their writing set the standard for scholarship and interpretation, and their influence is still felt today. Yet they were not flawless. As Gary Topping explains in this, the first comprehensive appraisal of their work, each had serious shortcomings. DeVoto and Stegner, master storytellers, distorted their histories with excessive use of literary and artistic techniques; Morgan, the thorough researcher, failed to see larger contexts and interpretive possibilities; Brooks, courageous in finding damning new information on the Mountain Meadows massacre, stopped short of drawing conclusions that might alienate her from her fellow Mormons; and Brodie, psychobiographer extraordinaire, nonetheless succumbed to reading too much into the lives of her subjects based on her own emotions and conflicts. All five writers experienced Mormon Utah in the formative stages of their lives and, whether they wanted to or not, fashioned their work on the American West under that indelible influence. Topping shows ultimately how, despite weaknesses, each created exemplary models of diligent research and narrative elegance while establishing new traditions in western historical scholarship.


Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History Related Books

Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History
Language: en
Pages: 410
Authors: Gary Topping
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003 - Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Among historians of Utah and the American West, few names have greater resonance than Bernard DeVoto, Dale Morgan, Juanita Brooks, Wallace Stegner, and Fawn Bro
West of Slavery
Language: en
Pages: 393
Authors: Kevin Waite
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-04-01 - Publisher: UNC Press Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When American slaveholders looked west in the mid-nineteenth century, they saw an empire unfolding before them. They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migr
Women in Utah History
Language: en
Pages: 528
Authors: Patricia Lyn Scott
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-11-15 - Publisher: University Press of Colorado

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A project of the Utah Women's History Association and cosponsored by the Utah State Historical Society, Paradigm or Paradox provides the first thorough survey o
Utah in the Twentieth Century
Language: en
Pages: 468
Authors: Brian Q. Cannon
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-06-15 - Publisher: University Press of Colorado

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The twentieth could easily be Utah’s most interesting, complex century, yet popular ideas of what is history seem mired in the nineteenth. One reason may be t
Dale Morgan on the Mormons, Part 1
Language: en
Pages: 522
Authors: Richard L. Saunders
Categories: Latter Day Saint churches
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012 - Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first volume includes key extracts from Morgan's contribution to the WPA guide to Utah (1941), which remains an excellent introduction to the complex histor