The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America Rating :
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A bit boring
By Bultheel jan
This is the story of a religious sect where the focus is more on the sex scandal than on the content. It's just pulp reading.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting book
By BookReader1986
Fascinating book about a cult. It is a history book, but written less boring than a history book. Spoiler alert: one of the main characters in this book is Sojourner Truth, but you don't find out until the end.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.Make it to the end
By K_Love
We read this book as part of our segment on microhistories in a graduate-level historiography course. This book is fascinating. It's well-written and engaging, focusing on the bat-crazy tribulations of Matthias - the Prophet of the Jews. Situating his absurdity within the religious revivalism of the Great Awakening, Johnson and Wilentz describe how Matthis built a cult in New York in which wives were swapped, women were beaten, and an already sick man was poisoned and left for dead. It has all the makings of a penny press thriller with the historiographical rigor to back it up.
This is absolutely a book you do not want to miss. MAKE SURE to read all the way to the end because you're in for the most surprising twist ever.
Product Description
Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz brilliantly recapture the forgotten story of Matthias the Prophet, imbuing their richly researched account with the dramatic force of a novel.
In the hands of Johnson and Wilentz, the strange tale of Matthias opens a fascinating window into the turbulent movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening--movements that swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic personality drew in a cast of unforgettable characters--the meekly devout businessman Elijah Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann (who seduced the woman-hating Prophet); and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella Van Wagenen, regarded by some as "the most wicked of the wicked." None was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #75918 in Books
- Published on: 2012-04-02
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.76" h x5.24" w x.79" l,.60 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
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