Saints, Volume 1: The Standard of Truth
By the Church History Department
Synopsis: This book is a history of the Church, told to a modern audience, and in a narrative that feels more like reading a story than reading history. It tells the story of the early days of the Church through the eyes of many (often average) Latter-day Saints, based on their historical accounts. It is the first in a new series of history books printed by the Church that seeks to tell the story of the Restoration, complete with its controversial aspects, frankly for the modern reader.
Strong Points: I enjoyed this book for a lot of reasons. When I first approached this book, I was skeptical about the thought of incorporating stories about less important players in the Restoration; I thought that it would divert from the main story and take the emphasis off of the fantastic events of the Restoration. But instead it seemed to frame them in additional context and added a lot of color and detail to the already familiar stories. This book is good for adding additional, lesser-known details about familiar events, such as the First Vision. I thought I had read a lot of Church history and was rather well-versed, but I was learning plenty as I went through this book. Another useful and satisfying thing about the book was that it puts historical events into an easily-digestible and understandable format. It helps the reader truly understand the reasons for the circumstances that they were in, which may have seemed nebulous before. The book also presents unflattering and controversial information in a frank way, which I appreciate. But rather than leave the reader dwelling on the negatives, you are given a better appreciation for the bigger picture of the Restoration.
Weak Points: As much as I enjoyed this work and appreciated its strengths, it also did have what I considered several weaknesses. First of all, not a lot of dates or names of places were made very clear for a lot of specific events, and if you wanted to refresh your mind on the historical place/time context of the story you were reading, you were obliged to trace back several pages to find the oblique reference to such details. It seemed that the story itself was overshadowing a lot of the factual details. Next, the book had no photographs of historical persons or places, which would have richly complemented the text. There were artistic vignettes at the beginning of each chapter, but this seemed severely insufficient, as you were obliged to look up figures online to see their picture as you read about their story. Why such an oversight? Also, the book was mass produced in a trade paperback format, which is excellent for keeping costs down, but not so great for its appearance on a shelf, as one read through the book, even after much care, and the book will show its wear. Fortunately, there is a hardcover version available, but the book is still missing the wonderful historical photographs that it could have leveraged. Another thing that truly bothered me was the dispensing of centuries-old naming conventions by which we have come to identify historical figures. For instance, Heber C. Kimball is merely "Heber Kimball," and so on; they took the middle initials out of the names, but we have come to know them with their middle initials intact. Why do this? It was unnecessary and disruptive to the narrative. And finally, maybe it's because I'm used to reading serious history books not written for everyday laymen, but another bothersome thing was the book's habit of always referring to historical figures by their first names. It seemed to dampen the seriousness of the reading, and this, coupled with the simplistic way of the writing style, gives you a sense that you were reading a story written for kids or something.
Interesting: 5/5
Must Read: 5/5
Overall: 3.5/5
Pages: 699