Excavating Mormon Pasts – Newell G. Bringhurst & Lavina Fielding Anderson – 1589580915

Hardbound; good to very good; but dust jacket is a bit worn and torn.

The historiography of Mormonism’s first hundred years consisted of a loud but fairly simple debate between two voices: faithful Mormonism and anti-Mormonism. The advent of the New Mormon History after World War II—launched by such works as Leonard Arrington’s Great Basin Kingdom, Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, Robert Flanders’ Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, and Juanita Brooks’ Mountain Meadows Massacre—created a more complex, polyvocal discussion. This nuanced dialogue is, after fifty years, only swelling in number of participants, methodological sophistication, respect for primary sources, and consideration of the full range of participants in the many Mormon stories.

Excavating Mormon Pasts assembles sixteen knowledgeable scholars from both the Latter-day Saint and the Community of Christ traditions who have long participated skillfully in this dialogue. It presents their insightful and sometimes incisive surveys of where the New Mormon History has come from and which fields remain unexplored. They include Klaus J. Hansen, David L. Paulsen, Roger D. Launius, Stephen C. LeSueur, Glen M. Leonard, Craig L. Foster, M. Guy Bishop, Jessie L. Embry, Kahlile Mehr (heading a team of other international specialists, including Mark L. Grover, Reid L. Neilson, Donald Q. Cannon, and Grant Underwood), Danny L. Jorgensen, Mark A. Scherer, Todd Compton, Martha Sonntag Bradley, Newell G. Bringhurst, Davis Bitton, and Lavina Fielding Anderson.

mormon mormons mormonism lds 9781589580916