The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Essays on Mormonism Series)

The New Mormon History is the banner under which many professional historians today approach Latter-day Saint historiography. Scholars who embrace this term attempt to put significant events into context rather than bracketing data that might seem challenging to traditional assumptions. These scholars are also as interested in the experience of the rank-and-file as in the lives and edicts of the leaders, and pursue questions about women, minorities, domestic life, diet, fashion, and the common church experience. They employ statistical analysis and theories and methods of the social sciences in their work. In this collection, D. Michael Quinn has selected fifteen essays which demonstrate the methods of this new history. Contributors include Thomas G. Alexander, James B. Allen, Leonard J. Arrington, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Eugene E. Campbell, Kenneth L. Cannon II, Mario S. DePillis, Robert B. Flanders, Klaus J. Hansen, William G. Hartley, Stanley S. Ivins, Dean L. May, Linda King Newell, B. H. Roberts, Jan Shipps, and Ronald W. Walker. Participants offer new ideas and give readers the opportunity to determine for themselves the relative success of these approaches by presenting examples. The collection demonstrates areas of interpretation that may be considered revisionist as well. "New Mormon History" is the banner under which professional historians today approach Latter-day Saint historiography. Rather than bracketing data that challenges traditional assumptions, these scholars go where the evidence takes them, sometimes contextualizing what has been assumed to be supernatural and other times qualifying the presumably mundane.For instance, it is said that sea gulls saved Mormon settlers' crops. New Mormon Historians approach this faith statement by asking whether anyone at the time reported it as a miracle, whether the event was a recurring expectation of farmers or an anomaly, and how it differed from the same incident reported among Catholics in southern California. On the other hand, considering the coincidence of the gold rush following the devastatingly low crop yields the first few years in Utah, scholars acknowledge the providential nature of this event for Latter-day Saints.D. Michael Quinn has selected fifteen essays for this collection, each of which demonstrates the methods of this new history. Participants offer new ideas and give readers the opportunity to determine for themselves the relative successes of these interpretive approaches.