cover image David O. McKay Around the World: An Apostolic Mission: Prelude to Church Globalization

David O. McKay Around the World: An Apostolic Mission: Prelude to Church Globalization

Hugh J. Cannon. Spring Creek Book Company, $16.95 (242pp) ISBN 978-1-932898-46-0

This first person account of LDS Apostle David O. McKay's groundbreaking journey around the world in 1920-21 was written by his chosen companion for the trip, Hugh J. Cannon. This lost manuscript, originally intended for publication soon after McKay became Prophet and President of the LDS Church in 1951, only recently came to light via Cannon's children. This may prove to be fortuitous timing as the book complements nicely the 2005 biography David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright. Cannon's narrative is enjoyable for the elegant prose and dry wit of another era and for its details of McKay's formative journey (to which Prince and Wright devote just five pages). The significance of McKay's firsthand experience in dozens of cultures on this trip ripened as he oversaw significant globalization of Mormonism while head of the church in the 1950s and 1960s. Cannon's memoir, although laden with accounts of seasickness and miraculous acquisitions of berths on overcrowded steamers, is a porthole onto historical events, as well as the spiritual manifestations that accompanied these ""special missionaries"" to the world. Avid LDS historians will enjoy this snapshot of a budding international church and its insights into one of Mormonism's most charismatic leaders.