| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 215 words from this article are provided below; about 394 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle. By Kathleen Flake. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. xvi, 238 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8078-2831-9. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-8078-5501-4.)
Recently, much of the best new work in Mormon history has focused on the church's transition to modernity. Kathleen Flake's sharp, short book not only reinterprets this transition but also suggests a general proposition about religious and political authority in modern America. The Politics of American Religious Identity will have a wide readership.	1
In the late nineteenth century, Utah Mormondom (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS) stood in an awkward relation to the rest of the country. Founded in 1829 on the prophetic revelation of a new dispensation, the church of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young sealed itself off from the wider American people in its theocratic ambition for a kingdom of God on earth and in its doctrine of polygamous marriage as the seal to endless progress toward divinity. Moving beyond the mountains to their own territory, if not quite their own nation, mid- to late-nineteenth century Mormons were an alien and unassimilated "ethnicity," viewed by most Protestant Americans as threats to Christianity, the republic, and common morality.	. . .

There are about 394 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.