THIS IS THE PLACE..

The author of a novel, Grant Joshua (Houghton-1941) has written a history of Utah and the Mormons, in physical and psychological perspective. Intimate first-hand knowledge backgrounds a presentation of the state and its people with sympathy and understanding tolerance, a many panelled panorama of the region, yesterday and today. The years of immigration, the exclusiveness, the ""oneness"" of the settlers, and the specific culture resulting; the ""colomnal spider"" Brigham Young; polygamy -- as an emolient and an irritant; gentiles, jacks, Mormons and other sects; the eventual communal settling down; the arrogance -- and elemental goodness -- of the people; political paradoxes and church and finances; natural history and culinary landmarks; the roots and patterns of the Latter-day Saints; the bizarre relationship of the state to the nation as a whole, and so on. All in all, a worthy, though not exhaustive, study of a people and their land and their contacts. Easy familiarity with the subject gives the volume greater popular appeal than one with perhaps more profoundly scholarly approach. Personal experience of the sect and its followers highlights details of the wider canvas.