Mexico in the Time of Cholera. By Donald Fithian Stevens. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. ix + 315 pp. $34.96 paper.

Abstract

careful planning rather than “spontaneous, unpremeditated outbursts of creativity” (158). For Davis, Smith carefully curated and meticulously performed his image of a plowboy prophet. He sees Smith following after the highly structured though extemporaneous preaching of John Wesley or George Whitefield rather than the humble recipient of an ex nihilo creative surge. In the end, Davis’s Joseph Smith is in part conman, in part religious genius devoted to his work ethic, but decidedly not the plowboy prophet. Reconsidering the orality of Smith’s Book of Mormon project treads new ground, and Davis’s work will continue to play a role in the burgeoning field of Book of Mormon studies for years to come.