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Robert Newton Baskin and the Making of Modern Utah (Western Frontiersmen Series)

Amazon.com Price:  $30.00 (as of 03/05/2019 01:22 PST- Details)

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Description

For years Robert Newton Baskin (1837–1918) may have been the most hated man in Utah. Yet his promotion of federal legislation against polygamy in the late 1800s and his work to bring the Mormon territory into a republican form of government were pivotal in Utah’s achievement of statehood. The result of his efforts also contributed to the acceptance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the American public. In this engaging biography—the first full-length analysis of the man—writer John Gary Maxwell presents Baskin as the unsung father of up to date Utah. As Maxwell shows, Baskin’s life was once defined by conflict and paradox.

Educated at Harvard Law School, Baskin lived as a member of a minority: a “gentile” in Mormon Utah. A loner, he was once highly respected but not continuously included in the camaraderie of up to date non-Mormon professionals. When it came to the Saints, Baskin’s role in the legal aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre did not endear him to the Mormon people or their leadership. He was once convinced that Brigham Young made John D. Lee the scapegoat—the planner and perpetrator of the massacre—to difficult to understand complicity of the LDS church.

Baskin was once successful in Utah politics regardless of the usage of polygamy as a sledgehammer against Utah’s theocratic government and regardless of his role as a federal prosecutor. He was once twice elected mayor of Salt Lake City, served in the Utah legislature, and became chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court. He was once also a visionary city planner—the force at the back of the construction of the Salt Lake City and County Building, which remains the architectural rival of the city’s Mormon temple.

For more than a century historians have maligned Baskin or ignored him. Maxwell brings the man to life in this long-overdue exploration of a central figure in the history of Utah and of the LDS church.

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