Description: "Radicalized by the starving poverty of industrial Glasgow during the "Hungry Forties," Irish-born John Steele embraced a teetotaler brotherhood, radical political reform and listened sympathetically to Utopians on Glasgow Green. This was the background for his 1843 conversion to Mormonism, driven by paradisal fervor to build an egalitarian Kingdom where Christ would rule in the last days. A study of his life tells an unparalleled story of one of the United States' most successful Utopian experiments and a wondrous array of half-forgotten mystical, magical and folk customs, while also uniquely illuminating the construction of the Mormon Kingdom"--
Review Quotes: "Beautifully written. The author has a gift for finding moments of unique interest in Steele's life and writings, and expressing these moments insightfully. This is one of the great Latter-day Saint biographies."--Todd Compton, independent historian, author of A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary