What a year for scholarship on Mormonism! I don’t envy folks on the Mormon History Association Book Award committees.

If this post inspires you to buy a book, please buy local where you can. Purchase from presses or from Benchmark Books or other independent bookstores. Support the places that support Mormon history.

Mormonism in Broader American (Religious) History

• Benjamin E. Park, Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (New York: Liveright/Norton, 2020).
• Taylor G. Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).
• Sara M. Patterson, Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Each of these books are signal contributions to American history and American religious studies. Park’s book presents a highly readable, deeply-research narrative that helps historians see how Mormon history acted as a microcosm of tensions over American democracy in antebellum America. Petrey’s explores how definitions and practices surrounding race, gender, and sexuality changed in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the end of World War II to the present day. Sara Patterson’s analyzes collective memory and sensory religion, shedding new light on a favorite Mormon history topic (Mormon settlers moving west).

Joseph Smith’s Prophetic Career

• Ronald O. Barney, Joseph Smith: History, Methods, and Memory (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020).
• William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).
• Samuel Morris Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Word and Worlds of Early Mormonism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Michael Hubbard McKay, Prophetic Authority: Democratic Hierarchy and the Mormon Priesthood (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020).
• Michael Hubbard McKay and William G. Hartley, eds, The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2020).
• Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

2020 is the year of Michael Hubbard MacKay! Each of his books provide insight into Joseph Smith’s religious worlds and ideas. Ronald Barney’s is useful for those interested in learning about memory studies; if anyone would like to write a dual book review with Steve Harper’s book on memory and the First Vision, please send me a note!

Sam Brown’s book is as much theology as it is history, which may scare off some readers. It shouldn’t. Its brilliance, and placing Joseph Smith’s translation conversations with broader ideas about sacred texts, secularism, and what Orsi calls “presence” is a must-read.

I haven’t gotten to William Davis’s book (dissertations! Argh!), but every person I’ve spoken to that has read it has recommended it.

Joseph Smith Papers Project

• Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Matthew C. Godfrey, Jordan T. Watkins, and Mason K. Allred, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 10: May-August 1842 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2020).
• Spencer W. McBride, Jeffrey D. Mahas, Brett D. Dowdle, and Tyson Reeder, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 11: September 1842-February 1843 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2020).

JSPP gonna JSPP. Which is to say, they produce outstanding scholarship that is invaluable to researchers and non-specialists alike. Their website makes teaching early Mormonism so simple and their high-resolution photos make documents come alive. I can’t imagine teaching without it.

Biography

• Matthew L. Harris, Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020).
• Elisa Eastwood Pulido, The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista: Mexican Mormon Evangelizer, Polygamist Dissident, and Utopian Founder, 1878-1961 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

I’m reviewing Harris’s book for Utah Historical Quarterly soon, so check out my full thoughts later in the year. Suffice it to say that I highly enjoyed the book.

Elisa Pulido’s book has the possibility of changing how Mormon studies scholars study polygamy, politics, and write their biographies. For those without very healthy book budgets, Interlibrary Loan and public library purchase requests are your friends!

Interdisciplinary Studies

• Christopher James Blythe, Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Joanna Brooks, Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Carol Edison, Erica A. Eliason, Lynne S. McNeill, This is the Plate: Utah Food Traditions (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020).

Blythe’s volume presents a fresh take on “vernacular religion” and helped contextualize Latter-day Saint views of the end times from their Church’s creation to the present day. Joanna Brooks’ book received a lot of attention, and her argument about “racial innocence” is very important. Whether you have read the book or not, you should grapple with the reviews by James C. Jones, Paul Reeve, and LaShawn Williams. Edison, Eliason, and McNeil deserve an award for best book title—I look forward to reading the book once my dissertation is in to my committee.

Latter-day Saints and the State

• Kenneth L. Alford, Saints at War: The Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2020).
• Derek R. Sainsbury, Storming the Nation: The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2020).

Alford’s new volume continues the useful and fascinating series on Latter-day Saints serving in the military in the Middle East. Derek Sainsbury’s is a very interesting study on the political missionaries who worked on behalf of Joseph Smith’s run for President of the United States in 1844.

Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020)

• 1^st Nephi: Joseph M. Spencer
• 2^nd Nephi: Terryl Givens
• Jacob: Deidre Nicole Green
• Enos, Jarom, Omni: Sharon J. Harris
• Mosiah: James E. Faulconer
• Alma 1-29: Kylie Nielson Turley
• Alma 30-63: Mark Wrathall
• Helaman: Kimberly Matheson Berkey
• 3^rd/4^th Nephi: Daniel Becerra
• Mormon: Adam S. Miller
• Ether: Rosalynde Frandsen Welch
• Moroni: David F. Holland

Someday I will write more, but this series is a major contribution to Latter-day Saint intellectual history. They’re devotional, but those who do not subscribe to Mormonism’s truth claims will be better able to read the Book of Mormon with the help of the twelve author’s insights.