More has been written about the history of the Mormons than about any other religious group in America, except the Puritans. There are tons of books out there. This bibliography is not meant to be comprehensive. It is a short list of those books that have been most helpful to me in my recent efforts to come to terms with my heritage.
Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
A decent overview of the history of the church. Arrington and Bitton are Mormons, but their history is intended for both Mormon and non-Mormon audiences, and they take an approach that is scholarly rather than devotional.
Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
This book is somewhat dated (originally published in 1945, with a revised edition that came out in 1975), but it is still popular and still in print. A former Mormon who may have had an ax to grind, Brodie essentially argues that Joseph Smith was a charalatan who came to believe his own lies. She has a tendency to quote anti-Mormon sources in full, even when she admits that they are not reliable. Also, she does not cover theological and political developments of Joseph's later career in as much depth as they deserve. Much better scholarship has come out since the 1970s. However, Brodie writes colorfully, offers a compelling narrative of the life and times of the prophet, and has a biting sense of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It contains some arguments that deserve to be considered, but should not be viewed as the final word on Joseph Smith's life and career.
Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
Brooks' study has been hailed by Mormons and non-Mormons alike as a turning point in Mormon historical scholarship. Brooks, a devout Mormon, fearlessly probed this "darkest moment" in Mormon history, breaking almost a century of official silence about the actual history surrounding the topic. Brooks' account puts the blame for the massacre squarely on Mormon leaders in southern Utah, and on the Mormon militia who planned and carried it out. Though she ultimately exonerates Brigham Young of responsibility for the massacre itself, she holds him and George A. Smith responsible for helping to fan the climate of hysteria and hate that led up to the massacre, for encouraging the Indians of Utah to serve as the Mormons' "battleaxe of the Lord," and for helping to cover up the truth after the fact. A good part of the narrative is devoted to explaining how the entire blame for the massacre was shifted to John D. Lee, despite the fact that he vehemently opposed the plan to massacre the Fancher Party, and despite the fact that his role in the event was essentially as a military subordinate who was only following orders.
David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994).
Buerger treats this very sensitive topic with respect. A devout Mormon, his basic approach is that Mormon temple worship benefits from an understanding of the historical and social context in which the temple ceremonies came into existence and evolved, from Kirtland to the present. Many Mormons will probably be offended by this book, though his approach is not sensational and he does not quote directly from nor give detailed descriptions of ceremonies that are meant to be kept secret. He makes some effort to evaluate the impact of temple worship on Mormon devotional life, and addresses issues such as Freemasonic influences on the ceremony, the "oath of vengeance" and the blood oaths, the history of temple garments, and the history of the "second anointing." I wish I had had access to this information before going to the temple, as it might have made the experience more comprehensible and less traumatic.
Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
This biography of Mormonism's founder has been widely hailed as the "definitive" biography of the prophet. I read it with intense interest, and enjoyed it. Bushman is both a respected professional historian and a believing Latter-day Saint. He clearly wants to leave room for faith, and obviously wrote with LDS believers in mind as his primary audience. But he approaches his subject matter in a way that allows interested outsiders to listen in and even join in the conversation. He neither suppresses nor delves into the more controversial aspects of Joseph's career, a tendency which many reviewers have offered as proof of his objectivity. He is openly disdainful of Fawn Brodie (still the most famous and widely read biographer of Joseph Smith). Whenever he can, he adopts the most generous possible interpretation of what might be termed the prophet's "foibles." I can't say I learned anything particularly new in this biography and found his analysis predictable. But no doubt his work will be well received by Mormon faithful who have been longing for a biography that is honest, complete, takes into account all the best available scholarship, and provides an appreciative view of the prophet. Mormons are entitled to such an account, and Bushman has finally provided it.
Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1977).
This essentially sympathetic narrative by a devout Mormon makes the case that Joseph Smith sincerely believed in his divine calling, though it presents him as a complex character, courageous and admirable, capable of deceit, frequently wrong, and in many ways tragic. Hill has a tendency to accept at face value Smith's own statements about the "money-digging" episodes in his early life, even when they don't square with established or admitted facts. She also exonerates Smith of any connection to the Danites, and does not admit their existence after the Missouri period. However, she presents the facts about polygamy and Joseph's secret theocratic ambitions straightforwardly, even when they are not flattering to the prophet, and she does so without commentary that might relieve the believer of the necessity of struggling with inconvenient data. While devotional histories have a tendency to portray the persecutions of Mormons as a struggle of good vs. evil, Hill places them within a more comprehensible, human context. Her narrative helps the reader understand why Mormons frightened and upset their neighbors, and also acknowledges how Mormons sometimes exacerbated the conflicts and how Joseph's actions frequently produced bitter dissention. Though the account is generally sympathetic to Mormons, the faithful will find it challenging.
Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (Anchor: 2004).
Krakauer is a non-Mormon, but sympathetic toward the LDS church. This compelling read is about Mormon fundamentalists, splinter groups that left the church after the 1890 Manifesto banning polygamy, and Krakauer is clear about the fact that these groups are condemned by the LDS church, and even discusses in detail the LDS church's cooperation with law enforcement to prosecute polygamists. In order to provide proper perspective on the fundamentalists, however, Krakauer examines the history of polygamy and the Danites in the early church. He argues that the church's legacy of secret polygamy and theocratic violence laid the theological foundation for Mormon fundamentalist extremism.
Despite the fact that Krakauer is painstakingly clear about the LDS Church's current rejection of the practice of polygamy, most members of the LDS Church--especially the devout variety--tend to be extremely defensive about this book, and resent the attention it draws to the history of Mormon polygamy. But the truth is, the church has still not dealt with polygamy, and in many ways is obfuscating the place of polygamy in the church's history and current belief system with its anti-gay-marriage rhetoric. Until the church comes to terms, histories such as Krakauer's will continue to be a thorn in the side.
D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994).
-----, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997).
D. Michael Quinn is a loyal Mormon who was excommunicated in 1993 because the Mormon hierarchy disapproved of his historical work. His two-volume narrative takes an unflinching look at church history in terms of power and conflict. Like all of Quinn's work, it is painstakingly researched and documented. He examines the charismatic sources of power in the church, and all the ramifications of exercising that power as part of a visionary quest to transform human social, political, and spiritual relationships. He explores religiously motivated violence, how polygamy and kinship were used to undergird political power, how dominance within the hierarchy has been achieved through a combination of consensus and conflict, and how the Mormon hierarchy has translated religious authority into political and social activism. Volume One ("Origins of Power") contains an in-depth analysis of Joseph Smith's career as a prophet, and how he transformed a loosely organized, individualistic group of believers into a highly disciplined, tightly organized church, motivated by intense loyalty to the prophet. I found Quinn's account of the Danites, the doctrine of blood atonement, the Council of Fifty, the Quorum of the Anointed, and Joseph Smith's unique vision of theocracy particularly interesting, since these were aspects of Mormon history I had never learned much about. But his discussion of the evolution of different priesthoods and offices in the church I also found fascinating, since my impression of the priesthood growing up was that it had always functioned and been organized in the same way. Finally, the book sheds fascinating light on the succession crisis at Joseph's death, arguing that Joseph himself was responsible for much of the confusion that occurred after his assassination by making conflicting succession promises, and by organizing so many competing power centers. Volume Two ("Extensions of Power") I found interesting because it explains much about the inner workings of a present-day hierarchy I and so many others find infuriating. Of particular interest to me was his account of the administration of David O. McKay, which brought Mormonism into the "modern age," his case study of conflict in the apostleship of Ezra Taft Benson, and his account of the Mormon Church's organized opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.
-----, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996).
This book advances two important historical projects: the one of making gays and lesbians in the American past visible, and the other of situating Mormon history in the broader context of American religious and social history. Quinn's description of the "homosocial" world of nineteenth-century Mormonism won't shock anyone familiar with the history of sexuality. But his documentation of the relative tolerance for homosexual behavior shown by nineteenth-century Mormon leaders -- from Joseph Smith to George Albert Smith -- is startling. The book describes the "world we have lost," but refrains from attempting to explain how American (and Mormon) "homosocial" culture came to be replaced by modern "homophobic" culture. Nevertheless, he hints that the roots of modern homophobia may be found in the religious conflicts of the late nineteenth century, as Anglo-Saxon Protestantism sought to establish the supremacy of its values and worldview. Quinn looks at the full sweep of nineteenth-century Mormon experience, and looks at every aspect of gay and lesbian experience in that context -- in the early church, during the pioneer experience, during the settlement of the "Mormon culture region" in the inter-mountain West, as missionaries among Indians and native Hawaiians, and through the early twentieth century when Mormonism renounced polygamy and entered the modern age. It gives equal treatment to Mormon women and men, and includes the experience of racial minorities as well as the white Mormon majority. Quinn not only describes turn-of-the-century gay and lesbian Mormons, he gives them a voice. As a Mormon heritage individual, as a gay man, and as a historian of sexuality, I found it a fascinating read.
I've written a more extended review of Quinn's book, that has been published in the Spring 2006 issue of the Journal of Mormon History.
-----, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998).
I like this book mainly because it illuminates a little known (and less understood) aspect of early American folk culture. Quinn shows that prior to the early nineteenth century folk magic was widely believed in and practiced in America, until it was systematically stigmatized and suppressed around the time of the Second Great Awakening. But I also like it because, though most Mormons would find the thesis of the book shocking, it goes a long way toward rationally explaining the Smith family's interest in the occult without blackening the reputation of the Smiths (as Brodie's biography does) and without downplaying or dismissing the role of the occult in their lives (as Hill's biography does).
-----, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992).
This is a collection of 15 essays, illuminating various important historical debates in Mormon studies. It includes James B. Allen's seminal essay on the "first vision" accounts; Jan Shipps' essay, "The Prophet Puzzle," offering a new framework for interpreting the seemingly inscrutable New York origins of Mormonism and Joseph's early life; an article looking at early Mormon women who exercized the priesthood; and a number of essays on polygamy and other aspects of Mormon social history. I also like the analysis of the significance of the Nauvoo experience in shaping Mormon community and self-conceptions ever since: "Dream and Nightmare: Nauvoo Revisited."
Jan Shipps, Mormonism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
Shipps' thesis has been very influential in scholarship about Mormonism. A non-Mormon scholar, but one friendly to the church, she argues that Mormonism cannot be adequately understood as a branch of the Christian family tree, but must be regarded as a "fourth" branch of the family of religions whose first three branches are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Mormonism combines elements of Old and New Testament faith with the optimism and rationalism of the American creed, and has become a new world religion.
The Mormon History Association
The Mormon History Association is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to the study and understanding of all aspects of Mormon history. They welcome all who are interested in the Mormon past, irrespective of religious affiliation, academic training, or world location. They promote their goals through scholarly research, conferences, awards and publications, including the Journal of Mormon History.
The mission of the Sunstone Foundation is to sponsor open forums of Mormon thought and experience. Under the motto, "Faith Seeking Understanding," they examine and express the rich spiritual, intellectual, social and artistic qualities of Mormon history and contemporary life. They encourage humanitarian service, honest inquiry, and responsible interchange of ideas that is respectful of all people and what they hold sacred.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
Dialogue Journal is an independent quarterly established to express Mormon culture and to examine the relevance of religion to secular life. It is edited by Latter-day Saints who wish to bring their faith into dialogue with the larger stream of world religious thought and with human experience as a whole and to foster artistic and scholarly achievement based on their cultural heritage.
Book of Mormon
On the fringes of Mormonism there is currently a lively debate taking place about the Book of Mormon that the vast majority of faithful Mormons are oblivious to, but that may ultimately transform LDS belief about their scriptures. Traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon, based on Joseph Smith's own teachings, says that all native peoples of the Americas are descendents of the ancient "Lamanites," and that the "land of promise" described in the Book of Mormon comprises the entire north and south American continents. Lehi's landing (supposedly taking place around 600 B.C.) was somewhere on the coast of Chile, the "narrow neck of land" was the Isthmus of Panama, and the final battle of extermination between Lamanites and Nephites (around 400 A.D.) took place on the Hill Cumorah in upstate New York. Unfortunately, growing archaeological, ethnological, linguistic, and -- most recently -- DNA data that have accumulated in the 170 years since the Book of Mormon was first published have completely controverted almost every single traditional Mormon belief about the Americas, and about the relationship of their founding book of scripture to the Americas.
Mormon intellectuals seeking to make sense of the contradictions between science and their traditional faith have divided roughly into two camps. On one side, the "apologists," who have gathered around the BYU-sponsored Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies ("FARMS"), have attempted to maintain the antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Mormon by arguing that Joseph Smith misunderstood the actual scope of the book. The actual events of the Book of Mormon, they argue, took place in a much smaller geographical area than traditionally assumed, perhaps in an area as small as ancient Palestine, and the peoples described in the Book of Mormon lived in relative isolation from the vast majority of "Native Americans" who are the descendents of the peoples who crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia 15,000 - 30,000 years ago. Though the apologists are not agreed on what specific location served as the field of events described in the Book of Mormon (one scholar, Blake Ostler, has even gone so far as to say that the Book of Mormon peoples may not have settled in the American mainland at all), they have tended to make the case for the area surrounding the isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. Apologists have also attempted to address the many apparent anachronisms in the book by suggesting that, though Joseph Smith did not completely fabricate the text, he significantly expanded on it and added to it his own observations and interpretations. A number of apologists, taking a cue from Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley, have avoided archaeological debates, and focused instead on linguistic and literary analysis of the Book of Mormon which they believe proves that the book is ancient, has Hebraic origins, and could not possibly have been authored by Joseph Smith.
The second camp has abandoned belief in any claim of ancient origins for the Book of Mormon, and has chosen instead to focus on analyzing the book in light of its demonstrable nineteenth-century American origins and cultural context. The Book of Mormon, they argue, is not what it claims to be, but that does not invalidate its spiritual significance. The Book of Mormon is analagous, they argue, to many portions of the Bible (such as the Book of Deuteronomy or "second" and "third" Isaiah), which have been proven by scholars not to have the origins or historical significance traditionally claimed for them, but which still have spiritual value. Despite its pseudepigraphic origins, the Book of Mormon has been embraced by millions of people as a foundation of their spirituality, and needs to be considered for the significant contribution it has made to the establishment of a new world religion. But its significance can only be fully appreciated if it is understood in the category of "American Apocrypha." This camp generally rejects the argument, advanced since the 1830s by anti-Mormons, that Joseph Smith plagiarized the Book of Mormon from some other source (such as the "Spaulding Manuscript") and has a tendency to read the Book of Mormon as a source on Joseph Smith's own theological development, spirituality, and psychology. The main problem this intepretation poses for faithful church historians is that it forces them to account for a certain level of duplicity on the part of Joseph Smith with regard to his account of the Book of Mormon's origins.
Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993).
A collection of essays from modern origins perspective. Roughly half of the essays focus on textual analysis in the context of 19th-century U.S. culture. The other half critique various apologist arguments, including the historical claims related to biblical texts embedded in the Book of Mormon, demographic problems related to certain Book of Mormon claims, and criticism of the purported "Reformed Egyptian" origins of the text.
John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Map (Provo: The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000).
Written from the limited geography perspective, this tidy little book argues that, even if it is difficult to locate Book of Mormon events on modern maps, geographical referents in the Book of Mormon are internally consistent. The essay builds a map based on these referents.
Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002).
More essays continuing in the vein of New Approaches. Contributions include: an essay considering accounts of Book of Mormon dictation in comparison with other "automatic texts"; an account of recent DNA findings on Native American ancestry; an essay examining the testimony of the eleven witnesses; an account of Book of Mormon apologist and general authority B.H. Roberts' late-life doubts about the historicity of the book; an analysis of the Book of Mormon Isaiah text arguing that it is clearly derivative of the King James Bible and a forerunner of the Joseph Smith revision of the Bible; an examination of the "seer" narrative in the Book of Mormon and how it related to Joseph Smith's self-image; an argument about the "anti-masonic" thesis of Book of Mormon origins; and an essay advancing an argument about a possible rationale for Joseph Smith's falsification of the books' origins.
The web site of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies.
The web site contains a wealth of information from the apologist perspective. Farms also publishes a newsletter (to which it is possible to subscribe through the web site) featuring regular articles by scholars in support of Book of Mormon antiquity.