DiscussMormonism.com

Yeah, I know.

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No problem. =

Any particular aspect of Mormon history or era?

That is really a broad question.

If I had to pick one book to start with it would be Rough Stone Rolling by R Bushman.

Nelson Chung wrote:By peer-reviewed, I mean by an academic press like Cambridge. Not Deseret or Signature.

I don't know why you would exclude LDS and Mormon-themed presses from your search. Signature Books has published some excellent historical scholarship (e.g., Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents series). And probably the best history of early Mormonism currently available (Mark Lyman Staker's Hearken O Ye People) is published by Kofford Books.

Cambridge has published next to nothing on Mormonism (I can only think of John Brooke's Refiner's Fire and Douglas Davies's Introduction to Mormonism). Oxford University Press has published quite a bit--much of it by Terryl Givens. But it has published only one major historical monograph: Walker, Turley, and Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows (2008).

The University of Illinois Press was the main academic publisher of Mormon history during the 1980s and 1990s but it publishes almost nothing now.

Two of the most important works of Mormon history from the 2000s were published by the University of North Carolina Press: Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (2002) and Kathleen Flake's The Politics of Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (2004). (UNC also recently published Spencer Fluhman's Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America.)

By the way, my short list of essential Mormon history titles would include the following:

• Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (5 vols.)
• Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
• Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
• Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View
• Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power
• Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power
• Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism
• Staker, Hearken O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations
• LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri
• Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi
• Hallwas and Launius, Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois
• Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900
• Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet
• Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930
• Prince and Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism

Nevo wrote:

Nelson Chung wrote:By peer-reviewed, I mean by an academic press like Cambridge. Not Deseret or Signature.

I don't know why you would exclude LDS and Mormon-themed presses from your search. Signature Books has published some excellent historical scholarship (e.g., Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents series). And probably the best history of early Mormonism currently available (Mark Lyman Staker's Hearken O Ye People) is published by Kofford Books.

Cambridge has published next to nothing on Mormonism (I can only think of John Brooke's Refiner's Fire and Douglas Davies's Introduction to Mormonism). Oxford University Press has published quite a bit--much of it by Terryl Givens. But it has published only one major historical monograph: Walker, Turley, and Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows (2008).

The University of Illinois Press was the main academic publisher of Mormon history during the 1980s and 1990s but it publishes almost nothing now.

Two of the most important works of Mormon history from the 2000s were published by the University of North Carolina Press: Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (2002) and Kathleen Flake's The Politics of Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (2004). (UNC also recently published Spencer Fluhman's Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America.)

Thanks for the references.

It has to be good enough so non-Mormons care about it. Or written by someone with a PhD.

UoI has published Grant Hardy's Book of Mormon Reader recently but it's been stained by the blood of Joseph Smith.

I've read 80 pp. from Turner's BY bio and it is kickass.

There are so many good ones that it's really hard to choose. Several that are on Nevo's list would be on my shortlist as well. Another that I was recently very impressed with was Sam Brown's In Heaven as It Is on Earth. I also enjoyed the very readable Villages on Wheels: A Social History of the Gathering to Zion. Nevo's list is also missing a classic or two, such as Vogel's Indian Origins, Underwood's Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, and Mauss's Angel and the Beehive.

isn't this a book thread posting?
viewforum.php?f=10

CaliforniaKid wrote:Nevo's list is also missing a classic or two, such as Vogel's Indian Origins, Underwood's Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, and Mauss's Angel and the Beehive.

I was thinking of straight-up history, so I didn't include Mauss's Angel and the Beehive, but I agree that it's a classic. So is Thomas F. O'Dea's The Mormons.

You're absolutely right that Underwood's Millenarian World of Early Mormonism should have been on my list. An unfortunate omission on my part.

I don't really think of Vogel's Indian Origins as a classic work of Mormon history, but I can't say that I've looked at it very closely.

A belated disclaimer:
I should add that my list of "essential" reading was intended to provide someone with little or no exposure to Mormon history with a pretty good grasp of some of the major personalities and events from 1830 through the mid-twentieth century (come to think of it, I should have also included Quinn's bio of J. Reuben Clark). As a result, I have omitted some top-notch scholarly studies and included some lesser ones.