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Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
October 8, 2005
Richard L. Bushman professor emeritus, history, Columbia

Richard L Bushman makes a strong case for Joseph Smith's vision as a trace of the regional culture that he left behind with his childhood.

Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, was a New Englander at heart: his family left the region when he was 10 and he never returned. Economic hardship and religious confusion cut him off from his New England roots, but his religious vision evoked the Antinomian side of the Puritan heritage, and his attempts to build a City of Zion are powerfully reminiscent of the first generation's desire to erect "a city on a hill".

Culture & Identity | History | Literature & Philosophy
a city on a hill | Biographies | City of Zion | History | Joseph Smith | prophet | Spirituality & Religion
WGBH
Image of Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism
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Publisher: University of Illinois Press (1987)
Binding: Paperback, 272 pages
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