Viewed from one angle, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow have crafted a traditional Mormon biography. Their Parley P. Pratt, after all, features a member of the movement's nineteenth-century founding elite, whose career as an intrepid apostle offers adventurous, even heroic, feats of evangelism and theological expression. The volume's format as biographical narrative, its chronological scope, its prioritization of theology, and its subject's privileged standing fit it rather neatly into a venerable Mormon historiography. Questions of gender, race, and power often lurk dimly as subtler background shades that blur behind the pugnacious apostle's vividness. To dismiss their account as a monument to Mormon history's widely critiqued “leading men” obsession would be a mistake, however. The authors' combined skill pulls the work back from hagiography. Their mastery of Pratt's historical and intellectual contexts coupled with their expository gifts make for a tale that will engage and fascinate a broad readership.

The authors' subtitle points to their subject's significance for Mormonism—an apostle who did for the religion what Paul did for Christianity. Pratt, they write, not only systematized, and sometimes even realized, Mormon theology from founder Joseph Smith's sometimes inchoate or scatter-shot revelations, but also he cut that theology for an antebellum religious marketplace as the preeminent Mormon polemicist. He personally delivered the message to thousands as perhaps the faith's leading early missionary. Indeed, it is curious that so critical a figure has been left unexamined for so long. Or perhaps not, given that Pratt grasped the reins of his historical legacy firmly, providing Mormonism its most celebrated autobiography. Givens's and Grow's Pratt is as fascinating as the towering figure of Pratt's own self-creation. As an evangelist, debater, administrator, preacher, writer, theologian, polygamist, and Western colonizer, Pratt seemed habitually at the center of Mormonism's founding dramas. Those wanting a lively rehearsal of early Mormon development can scarcely do better than this book. In some ways, Pratt helps map early Mormonism's lurching advance even better than Joseph Smith. Pratt joined the movement because of the Book of Mormon's message, not as a result of Smith's personal charisma. He was in the thick of the various Mormon capitals' excitements, but he also wended his way with the faith's migrating converts across the globe. He helped spearhead Mormonism's thrust into Britain and the vast Pacific Rim. He sometimes both exacerbated and helped contain the divisions that had sporadically splintered the flock and finally fractured the community after Smith's death. His brand of Mormonism—daring, provocative, theocratic, and polygamous—survived to flourish in the American West in part because of his daring and provocations. After Smith and Brigham Young, the authors write, Pratt was the “most influential figure in shaping early Mormon history, culture, and theology” (4).

The authors' portrait is a layered one. For those familiar with their previous work, the transitions between respective contributions are clear enough. Grow painstakingly recreates the gripping biographical narrative with workmanlike precision. He carefully incorporates a wide swath of documents, providing what will doubtless stand as the definitive account of the apostle's adventures. It seems unlikely that Grow has left any evidentiary stone unturned. Folded within his narrative are Givens's leaps into the literary, intellectual, and theological worlds that Pratt existed within and strained against. Givens's rich prose and flights of brilliant theological contextualization mark sometimes abrupt changes of tone but, in the end, the somewhat jarring shifts are forgivable given the multidimensional Pratt that emerges. We encounter a Pratt who chafes against constant poverty, stews over colleagues' slights, and seems to instinctively sense Mormonism's ideational possibilities better than almost anyone (including Smith in some ways). His raw articulateness pushed all the buttons in a raucous antebellum religious exchange: he satisfied the spiritual yearnings of converts by the thousands and anti-Mormon critics, too, were forced to reckon with his satirical, populist appeal.

Acknowledging that the volume is lengthy as it stands and that not every narrative thread could be fully developed, one or two layers still seem underdeveloped. For instance, Pratt's (expansive) family life is documented, indeed more carefully than ever before, but the meaning of his complicated relationships with his many wives remains under-theorized. At points, Pratt is described as a “deeply concerned” (293) family man and his home life as “loved” or “happy and harmonious” (330, 396), yet rampant documentary complexity belies such simple characterizations. His first wife suffered from apparent neglect and probable depression, and at least two subsequent wives seemed similarly discontented; the “very unhappy” Mary Ann Frost eventually divorced him (317). Even Pratt's fellows in the church hierarchy had to cool his zeal and remind him of his familial responsibilities (184). He suffered from acute homesickness while on his barnstorming tours, it is true, and he had a soft heart for his many children, but his spiritual restlessness routinely pulled him altogether away from the women who adorn his biography, sometimes by ecclesiastical assignment but often by choice. Even as they crafted a theology of deep familial and marital intensity, Pratt and his fellow apostles often knew divorce, alienation, or deep marital dissatisfaction. This sometimes heart-breaking socio-religious paradox—between a cosmic lionization of marriage and family and the this-worldly strains such a vision entailed—explodes off the pages, but mostly between the lines. Early Mormon polygamy offers some deafening silences, and, in this case, the women in Parley Pratt's life remain near-ciphers in the broader interpretative picture of the man. The authors acknowledge a wild new social world sprouting in early Mormonism's soil, but they mostly stay within the more manly confines of Pratt's chief interests.

Diverse readers will be richly rewarded for their investment. Portions of the volume could work in the academic classroom, but, ultimately, the book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in Mormonism, American religious history, or the American West. Its depth will engage academics, but its lively pace and sheer drama suit it for a broad readership, too. Givens and Grow are sensitive to their Latter-day Saint audience, but they refuse to handle Pratt too carefully. Their middle course between apologia and polemic will not satisfy everyone. For these scholars who share too much with Pratt to damage him but are too erudite and too gifted to simply turn and face the choir, in this case it amounts to a productive track indeed.