Mormon History (2010 Printing)

By James B. Allen, Ronald W. Walker, David J. Whittaker

Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak
On 6/20/2011

University of Illinois Press, 2010 (reprint of 2001 hardcover) Paperback:
296 pages
ISBN-10: 0-25207-773-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-25207-773-9 Price: $29.95

Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak for the Association for Mormon Letters

This book was originally published in 2001, then spent some time online in the University of Illinois Press free electronic library between 2001 and 2006, and has now been reprinted. It was meant as a companion to the 1,168 page bibliographic Studies in Mormon History, 1830-1997, published in 2000 and apparently still available. The intention of the book "is to provide a handbook for those starting a study in Mormon history" (page ix).

Chapter One introduces us to 19th century writing, beginning with Eber D. Howe's anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unvailed. It then continues with LDS pamphleteers, manuscript histories, and newspapers. The History of the Church is described as being "unsurpassed as a nineteenth-century LDS work...[that] remains a basic research tool for beginning students of the early Mormon experience" (page 9).

It goes on to talk about "middle way" books, which were written by non-members, and fit somewhere between Mormonism Unvailed and The History of the Church, before continuing with LDS authors such as Andrew Jensen and George Q. Cannon, and the establishment of the George Q. Cannon and Sons printing press.

In Chapter Two, the first half of the 20th century is looked at. Here the work of Nephi Anderson and B. H. Roberts is gone into, along with The Improvement Era and Essentials in Church History. Academic and professional historians also did some important work during this time, such as Richard T. Ely, Lowry Nelson, and Levi Edgar Young. Fawn Brodie, Dale Morgan, and Juanita Brooks are given a couple of pages each, referred to as "the three leading historians of Mormonism at midcentury" (page 51).

Chapter three discusses what Moses Rischin called the "new Mormon history." Leonard J. Arrington is credited with capturing the spirit of this writing: "investigating the Mormon past in human or naturalistic terms without rejecting its divinity." Shortly after this book was originally published, Louis Midgley showed that Arrington was not actually the author of that idea, and that he had spent many years coming up with what it actually meant after he had been credited with it, since it is an apparent contradiction. (See http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2001_Naturalistic_Terms.html .)

Arrington's work and that of others with him in the the LDS Historical Department is discussed, along with reactions by leaders such as Boyd K. Packer and Ezra Taft Benson. After the office was moved to BYU, many other books and articles were produced, by authors such as Dean C. Jessee and Thomas Alexander.

The BYU Department of History also made many contributions, as did the Church Educational System and the College of Religious Education. Scholars from the RLDS church (this book was written before it was renamed to "Community of Christ") such as Robert B. Flanders and Richard P. Howard did some important writing as well.

Space is also given to the work of people such as Jan Shipps, Lowell Bennion, Lawrence Foster, Richard L. Bushman, and D. Michael Quinn, and publications such as Utah History Encyclopedia, as well as computer-based databases. The beginnings of the Mormon History Association are related, along with periodicals such BYU Studies, Dialogue, The John Whitmer Historical Journal, The Improvement Era and Ensign, and Sunstone.

Chapter Four discusses the challenges of Mormon biography. It gives a history of LDS biographies, especially those of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. It talks about how biographies have changed over the centuries. It touches on biographies of women, dissenters, and schismatics, as well as autobiographies. It then outlines what the authors feel is still left to be done: "the lives of the rank and file," women, and more LDS leaders. And "the writing of LDS autobiographies is just getting started" (page 140).

Chapter five was written by Armand L. Mauss. It talks about social science literature. He points out that the studies on Mormons that have been done outside the church have not yielded reliable data, having either come from flawed samples or shortcomings in research methods, and that Utah cannot be used to represent the church.

He talks about the church's Research Information Division, which does produce reliable research, but is used internally by church leaders, and very little information that has been produced has been made available publicly. It has made contributions, however, by training young social scientists and giving "a degree of legitimacy to the social scientific perspective on religion, always suspect in the minds of conservative church leaders and members" (page 163).

Mauss also covers continuing as well as newly developing directions in LDS social science, such as family life, values, politics, racial and ethnic relationships, and the roles of modern women. He then discusses neglected topics: Mormon missiology; consequences of the exportation of the Mormon religion; social stratification; organizational studies; and deviance, discipline, and self control.

He ends his chapter with a statement that I wonder if he would still agree with today: "All things considered, it seems unlikely that the first decades of the twenty-first century will see the same rate of growth in social science literature on the Mormons that occurred in the final decades of the twentieth century" (page 182).

Appendix A and Appendix B go back over some of the same ground covered earlier in the book, listing books and other sources of value to historians. Appendix A evaluates "Mormon imprints" (although it also talks about some anti-Mormon titles and other works published by non-LDS publishers). It gives a history of publishing by the LDS church, including scriptures, periodicals, hymnals, and almanacs. Appendix B lists reference works, bibliographies, indexes, and even the familysearch.org web site as places to help find things to aid in research. A statement by Bernard De Voto that "a complete bibliography of articles on Mormonism by qualified scholars would hardly fill one page" (page 250) is indeed proven wrong.

In all, this book is a thorough (in some cases, perhaps too thorough) walk through the writing of the history of the church up through the close of the twentieth century. I found it to be very interesting and I learned many things from it. However, it is rather unfortunate that it was not updated when it was reprinted. Not only are the same typographical errors still intact from the first printing ten years ago (as verified by the archived e-book version at archive.org), but a great deal has changed in the last ten years, and I believe the changes have definitely been significant enough to warrant at least an additional appendix, if not an actual revision to the text.

Although the book is very useful for an amateur historian (such as myself) - or even still for a student, as was intended - to get up to speed on what has gone on before us, I'm afraid the book's own description of some outdated bibliographies now applies to itself: a "useful signpost... to the past journey of Mormon scholarship, telling of its quantity and quality when... [it] was produced." Still, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Mormon history or Mormon book collecting who wants to know more about the context in which the literature was produced.


Copyright 2011