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A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

What is the American Dream, truly? This American social, cultural, and working-class family history, spanning some four centuries, represents a deeply personal quest for an answer from an unlikely source, namely the author’s own European progenitors. Because of their Mormon faith, their stories have been preserved, but not told. What they have to say about the American Dream is noteworthy. For the huge bulk of the author’s immediate family, their American Dream was not the American Dream; their reports and narratives, in principle, stand well outside the fantastic story of “liberty and justice for all” in the “land of the brave.” Indeed, their economic fortunes, or lack thereof, did not conform to the pattern; and most failed to go from being the vanquished of Europe to the victorious of America. For their trouble, and largely because of their Mormonism, they were cast in the role of America’s Caliban. Their American Dream may have been only to wake up from what quickly became a nightmare, especially for the scores of women and children who paid the ultimate price. Importantly, A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660–2016 is a cautionary tale in an auto-ethnographical vein, and suggests that coming to the United States of America was often not worth such sacrifice.


Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. is a Professor in the Department of General Education at the American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, where he teaches courses in the Humanities, including undergraduate and graduate courses in the fields of Islamic civilization, jazz history, masculinity, and media studies. He is the author of many books and articles on the history of religion and new religions, with a special interest in the history of the Latter-day Saints and other counter-cultural religious movements in American history.

“Clyde Forsberg has added to his prolific literary portfolio a genealogic tour-de-force that paradigmatically captures the essence of the European Mormon emigration story. Through assiduous research into his family’s multinational origins, he has avoided the usual hagiographic trap by rendering a ruthlessly frank narrative of scoundrels, star-crossed lovers, and a rare saint or two. The result is an account of the Mormon migration in authentic secularity, largely and gratefully free of apologetic mythology. As the various cultural strains interweave through the miasma of polygamy, the reader wonders at the implausible denouement of this brilliant author himself emerging from such wilderness. Simultaneously entertaining and saddening, Forsberg’s volume will be an unforgettable read for both professional and casual historians.”
Bill Morain
John Whitmer Historical Association Journal Editor

“Wandering through his extensive ancestral garden, Clyde Forsberg exposes cracks in the myth of America, with Mormon ancestors and relatives who failed to achieve economic, social or even denominational recognition in a land of presumed boundless opportunity. Not a genealogical tale, it is, in fact, a critique of the American Dream, a ground-level exposure of a fable extolled from America’s foundation, today noisily propounded by Donald Trump. Not a rags-to-riches tale, it is one, Clyde Forsberg says, of rags-to rags, how his immigrant ancestors and their prodigious progeny struggled to make their way in a strange land. In giving us this, Forsberg provides arresting views of life in the still back waters of American culture.”
Donald Gordon Pollock
Independent historian of Mormonism and Canadian history

“Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. might be the smartest, most creative scholar now studying the tangled past of the Mormon people, or, as they like to be called in their insular history, the Latter-day Saints. Who cannot admire a jazz musician and distinguished international professor, a tyrant considered dangerous enough to toss into a Turkish jail? A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660-2016 explains his cultural roots through compassionate stories both insightful and fun.”
Will Bagley
Utah State Historical Society Fellow; The Prairie Dog Press

"Clyde R. Forsberg has written an absolutely fascinating story exploring his own multicultural ancestral origin beginning nearly four hundred years ago. The story comes out as an extremely well written and exciting narrative about extraordinary people, most engaged in Mormonism and polygamy, illustrating another kind of American Dream which often did not develop exactly as hoped. Forsberg is a very talented writer, creating a spectacular narrative from his family history, at the same time expressing important parts of both American and European history."

Liselotte Frisk, Professor of Religious Studies, Dalarna University, Sweden

“In an age when many people are using DNA as a shortcut to family history, Clyde Forsberg does his genealogical homework the old-fashioned way. The narrative product is far richer and more informative than a pie chart of geographic origins.”
Thomas W. Murphy
Chair, Anthropology Department, Edmonds Community College; Affiliate Faculty in Canadian Studies, University of Washington

"Clyde Forsberg shows the skill and dedication of a trained Mormon historian, plus an outstanding gift for storytelling. One expects hagiographies and "faith-promoting incidents" - but, disconcertingly, his own parents are portrayed with a starkly critical and ruthless honesty."

- Susan J. Palmer, Professor of Religious Studies, Dawson College and Concordia University

“Part family chronicle, part detective investigation, part historical study of migration from the Old to the New World, Clyde Forsberg’s A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016 is in every sense epic. Forsberg, an innovative scholar of religious studies with particular interests in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and nineteenth century missions shares an intimate tale of his own family, but one with wider significance for all modern citizens with roots in Christian Europe and a desire to understand the migrant and convert experience. He introduces readers to his parents, architect Clyde Revere Forsberg and beauty queen Virginia Swasey, young Mormons who fell in love in the 1950s, against the backdrop of migration from Sweden, Switzerland, England and Scotland, an intimate work that draws readers into a narrative of Mormon faith, dysfunctional families, tribulation and personal liberation. It is an entertaining and heartfelt memoir that is warmly recommended.”
- Carole M. Cusack, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Sidney

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-1958-9

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-1958-9

Release Date: 14th November 2018

Pages: 458

Price: £67.99

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