Provo, UTBook Signing at Benchmark Books – Wednesday, July 22, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m
BENCHMARK BOOKS
3269 So. Main Street, Suite 250
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
SPEND AN EVENING WITH AN AUTHOR
It is our pleasure to announce the publication of AMASA MASON LYMAN, MORMON APOSTLE AND APOSTATE, A STUDY IN DEDICATION by Edward Leo Lyman, published by the University of Utah Press. The author will be here on Wednesday, July 22, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. to talk about and sign his book. He will speak at 6:00 p.m. and answer questions from the audience, signing books before and after that time.
Mormon history is made up of many fascinating characters, and few more so than Amasa Lyman, who joined the Mormons early on and rose through the ranks of church leadership, replacing Orson Pratt in the Quorum of the Twelve after Pratt’s excommunication. He was a member of Zion’s Camp, the Council of Fifty, and Brigham Young’s pioneer company in 1847. He helped found San Bernardino (California) and Fillmore, Utah. After the Mountain Meadows Massacre, he tried to bring some of the main planners and participants to justice. Later Lyman became disillusioned with Brigham Young, was accused of teaching false doctrine, played a dominant role in the “New Movement” (Godbeites), and was ultimately excommunicated.
Though Amasa Lyman has been largely forgotten, this new biography provides a unique and revealing account of the early days of Mormonism and Lyman’s role in creating that history. This substantial (nearly 700 pages) volume features the meticulous research and penetrating, candid narrative we have come to expect from Leo Lyman, who is the award-winning author of Political Deliverance: The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood, The Overland Journey from Utah to California: Wagon Travel from the City of Saints to the City of Angels, and many other books and articles on Mormon, Utah, and western history.
Thomas Alexander calls the book “a stellar biography of one of the most significant figures of nineteenth century Mormon and Utah history . . . fascinating and enlightening.” Douglas Alder says it a “powerful biography.”
