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The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch
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About This Book
In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king. From this stronghold he controlled a fourth of the state of Michigan, establishing a pirate colony where he practiced plural marriage and perpetrated thefts, corruption, and frauds of all kinds. Eventually, having run afoul of powerful enemies, including the American president, Strang was assassinated, an event that was frontpage news across the country. The King of Confidence tells this fascinating but largely forgotten story. Centering his narrative on this charlatan's turbulent twelve years in power, Miles Harvey gets to the root of a timeless American original: the Confidence Man. Full of adventure, bad behavior, and insight into a crucial period of antebellum history, The King of Confidence brings us a compulsively readable account of one of the country's boldest con men and the boisterous era that allowed him to thrive.
Reviews
"Journalist Harvey...delivers a vivid account of the life and times of American sect leader, lawyer, newspaper editor, and con man ..."
"Light on deep or original historical analysis, this work recounts Strang's colorful story ..."
"What's important is how someone like Strang, a man who offered any number of reasons to distrust him, acquired so many loyal devotees ..."
"Writing with electrifying pleasure in discovery, Harvey zestfully captures 'the carnivalesque atmosphere' of antebellum America ..."
"Entertaining historical excavation."
"brings alive the bizarre and chaotic arc of Strang's life, as he seized his opportunity to accumulate power, money and multiple wives before being gunned down by rivals ..."
"This approach amounts to a sort of historical pointillism, bringing the manic, skittering mood of the era into focus."
"Miles Harvey has done a masterful job bringing the past to life, narrating the whirlwind rise and fall of a true confidence man."
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