Publisher's Synopsis
Book Synopsis: This awe-inspiring book is a tribute to the perseverance of the human spirit. A House for the Most High is a groundbreaking work from beginning to end with its faithful and comprehensive documentation of the Nauvoo Temple's conception. The behind-the-scenes stories of those determined Saints involved in the great struggle to raise the sacred edifice bring a new appreciation to all readers. McBride's painstaking research now gives us access to valuable first-hand accounts that are drawn straight from the newspaper articles, private diaries, journals, and letters of the steadfast participants. The opening of this volume gives the reader an extraordinary window into the early temple-building labors of the besieged Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the development of what would become temple-related doctrines in the decade prior to the Nauvoo era, and the 1839 advent of the Saints in Illinois. The main body of this fascinating history covers the significant years, starting from 1840, when this temple was first considered, to the temple's early destruction by a devastating natural disaster. A well-thought-out conclusion completes the epic by telling of the repurchase of the temple lot by the Church in 1937, the lot's excavation in 1962, and the grand announcement in 1999 that the temple would indeed be rebuilt. Also included are an astonishing appendix containing rare and fascinating eyewitness descriptions of the temple and a bibliography of all major source materials. Mormons and non-Mormons alike will discover, within the pages of this book, a true sense of wonder and gratitude for a determined people whose sole desire was to build a sacred and holy temple for the worship of their God. Praise for A House for the Most High: "McBride has basically taken every imaginable contemporary textual source related to the Nauvoo Temple and has linked them together chronologically with an easily flowing narrative. A House for the Most High is a treasure trove of primary source material and is an enjoyable read at the same time. --Stanley J. Thayne, BYU Studies "This excellent book . . . will be a standard work on the Nauvoo Temple among the Mountain Saints for many years to come. . . . It is unquestionably an excellent book in many ways and for many reasons." --William Shepard, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. "In a truly crowded field of Nauvoo scholarship, A House for the Most High demonstrates the viability of new research on Mormon Nauvoo. In competition with coffee-table books on the Nauvoo Temple, McBride shows balance, fairness, and thoroughness unsurpassed by these other works. Interested readers and historians of Mormonism's early period will find McBride's book a helpful reference work for years to come." --David Howlett, Journal of Mormon History About the Author: Matthew McBride is the Manager of Online Development at Deseret Book Company and was a major contributor to the GospeLink series of electronic library products. He has written for both the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History and is an obsessive reader. He and his wife Mary are the proud parents of four children and live in American Fork, Utah.
