Quest for Refuge: The American Flight from American Pluralism

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Quest for Refuge
The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism
MARVIN S. HILL
Hardback. 312 Pages. / 0-941214-70-2 / $19.95

The culmination of more than twenty-five years of research by one of Mormonism's premier historians, this insightful interpretation of Latter-day Saint history explains the church's religious and political developments in terms of class struggle and a rejection of American pluralism. According to Hill, the attempt to develop a communal utopia under a theocratic government during the 1830s and early 1840s was in large measure a reaction to the diminishing role of religion in the emerging democratic, competitive, and increasingly secular environment of the times. Quest for Refuge skillfully details the theological, economic, political, social, and psychological challenges facing Joseph Smith and his associates in their attempt to build a New Jerusalem in anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Marvin S. Hill, professor emeritus of American history, Brigham Young University, is the co-author (with Dallin H. Oaks) of Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith, which won the 1975 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association; and (with C. Keith Rooker and Larry T. Wimmer) of The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics. He is co-editor (with James B. Allen) of Mormonism and American Culture. He and his wife reside in Provo, Utah.