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

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Michael Quinn has collected a body of work that is sure to be remembered as one of his least controversial works in general circulation. That's all well and good, but it wasn't as "fun" to read as some of his own writings.

That said, this is a fine compilation, a smorgasborg that allows someone the opportunity to sample some of the "non-traditional" LDS studies that are available to the open-minded, yet faithful Mormon student. As Quinn defines them, the "new Mormon Historians" are a breed of scholar/student/writer who examine difficult, complex, and often controversial subjects in the church with an eye toward objectivity. The result is material that is neither condemning nor ridiculously apologetic, but rather intelligent and reasonable, with the intent to understand the faith system which they continue to maintain. Quinn respectfully tributes Juanita Brooks for paving this path for careful, objective and yet still faithful Mormon scholarship.

Topics covered in this collection include Mormon authority, evolving interpretatins and use of the First Vision and the Joseph Smith story, charismatic and priesthood gifts and useage among early Mormon women, the legend of the crickets and gulls, polygamy issues, and more. Each essay could send an interested reader down a long path of further study by reviewing the lists of reference material available in each author's footnotes.

A book like this might be a fine place for someone just starting the adventure of understanding Church History. As mentioned below, however, serious students of Church History will be very familiar with about everything found between these two covers.

D. Michael Quinn, one of the foremost practitioners of the type of work distinguished as the "New Mormon History," certainly thinks so. He has assembled in this volume a set of fifteen previously published essays and a short epilogue by B. H. Roberts, all demonstrating most ably the basic trends identified as "New Mormon History" (to Quinn a broadly descriptive rather than polemical label). He notes that this type of historical analysis seeks to attain a "functional objectivity" and avoid several "deadly sins of traditional Mormon history" (viii), among them shying away from critical but controversial topics.

"New Mormon historians" have adopted these as cardinal points against which all historical writing must be measured. The fifteen essays in this volume certainly rise to high there is no question that something important has happened in Mormon historical writing since the 1960s. Indeed, perhaps what has been taking place has been not so much a "new" approach toward Mormon history as the rapid and sustained professionalization of the field. The distinguishing features of the "New Mormon History" had been present to some degree long before the 1960s--most assuredly in the work of such early Mormon historians as E. E. Erickson, Joseph A. Geddes, or Nels Anderson--but emphasis on understanding rather than arguing a specific position became dominant during the 1960s. Both the quality and the quantity of the publications taking this approach skyrocketed during the next three decades. This book puts between two covers some of the best of that work.

Quinn's introduction briefly sketches these general trends in the text, and endnotes exhaustively reference historiographical trends. While a serviceable preamble to the articles that follow, the introduction could have presented a more substantial and philosophical discussion of the "New Mormon History" and its role in furthering an understanding of the Mormon past. The essays follow in roughly chronological order, making the book a useful text for classroom use. Taken altogether, the fifteen essays, each written by a different specialist and originally appearing between 1966 and 1983--perhaps the golden age of the New Mormon History--represent a powerful explanation of the larger aspects of Mormon history from its origins.

Some narrow and others broadly interpretive, these essays include the first major reassessments of unique topics in the history of the Mormon Church. Many of these pathbreaking studies, however, have since been revised by other historians. With the exception of a couple of instances where the authors have inserted some historiographical discussion into their endnotes, the essays do not comment on specific debates over interpretations. This lack of historiographical context is unfortunate, leaving readers with little understanding of the historians' differing perspectives.

Although each of these essays has stood the test of time and can be considered a benchmark study, like most collected works, this book suffers from uneven quality. Some essays are more challenging than others; I found particularly rewarding Thomas G. Alexander's "'To Maintain Harmony': Adjusting to External and Internal Harmony," first published in "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought" in 1982; Ronald W. Walker's provocative analysis of Mormon militarism, "Sheaves, Bucklers, and the State: Mormon Leaders Respond to the Dilemmas of War," which first appeared in "Sunstone: that same year; and "A Demographic Portrait of the Mormons, 1830-1980" by Dean L. May, first published in 1983, which significantly revised early membership numbers and Utah migration figures.

In addition, the volume's first essay, Leonard J. Arrington's eloquent plea for serious, professional historical inquiry--"The Search for Truth and Meaning in Mormon History"--is an important declaration of intellectual independence that present-day historians of Mormonism should embrace just as fully as did those who first read it in "Dialogue" in 1968. His assertion that "historians ought to be free to suggest interpretations without placing their faith and loyalty on the line" (p. 5) is a central issue in the current restrictive environment. Arrington's conclusion "that an intensive study of church history, while it will dispel certain myths or half-myths sometimes perpetuated in Sunday school (and other) classes, builds faith rather than weakens it" (p. 6) is especially germane to present debates over the faithfulness of Mormon history that strays from the agreed-upon story. With the current LDS review policy, threat of censorship, and restricted access to the Church Archives, we would do well to listen to such past voices of concern.

Any essay collection of this type has built-in difficulties. Although "The New Mormon History" is an important work encapsulating Mormon history's reinterpretation during the last generation, it views the Mormon experience only through the lens of selected events, institutions, and personalities, leaving huge gaps in the story of Mormonism and representing themes and events unevenly. The Reorganized Church (now Communit of Christ) experience, not even discussed, deserves mention in a book such as this and could have provided a useful counterpoint for analyzing such themes as theological developments, political issues, relations with larger society, and organizational structures. The collection also contains very little discussion of twentieth-century Mormonism. The era is ignored, with the exception of the Alexander and Walker essays, already mentioned, and some spillover of their subjects into the first part of this century in articles by Kenneth L. Cannon II, "After the Manifesto: Mormon Polygamy, 1890-1906," and Klaus J. Hansen, "The Metamorphosis of the Kingdom of God: Toward a Reinterpretation of Mormon History." Admittedly Quinn had much less to choose from for this field, although much more of the Church's history has been in the twentieth century. The volume would also have been enhanced had Quinn incorporated any of his own exemplary work.

Quinn anticipated some of these concerns in his introduction. "I can only apologize in advance," he wrote, "for the omissions and acknowledge that others might choose differently" (p. x). No apologies are necessary. This is an excellent collection in spite of different choices that could have been made. It makes available between a single cover several classic essays--some of the best of the "New Mormon History"--and serves as a fine introduction to a complex and fascinating subject.

It is not surprising that LDS movement would be inspired by the text and form criticism movement that began in the early 20th century. It is not surprising that the primary "battle" is between this new perspective and the more traditional one in LDS movement itself. There is no "new" LDS history as there has never been a "new" Jesus story. Stories are told over and over again by humans and interpreted by others and it is a fact that a historical account of Jesus would be more neutral if it was written today than by the community close to his presumed death, so the same goes for LDS.

As always Signature does their best to give a holistic picture thru their selection of essays. The essays don't have the "what really did happen?"-cliché, that many Conservative anti-LDS Christians are famous for. Lancaster handles the issue like Joseph's several accounts of the first vision very "gently". He has no ambition to say the last word. This is clear when Hansen, who became famous for his "Council of Fifty" make a review of his own essay some 20 years afterwards. He acknowledges that he would have written a bit differently, how, well it is for you to find out.

It's lovely that Newell (co-author to Emma Smith's biography) has an essay about the LDS women and how they spoke in tongues, administered; thing that LDS today view as strictly male priesthood duties. Shipps famous essay on a holistic view appears among the essays. She wanted to introduce a way to analyse Joseph ignoring the eternal dichotomy of charlatan and prophet. Beecher writes about the leading sisters of early LDS, among others Eliza R Snow. It is weird how history always becomes the history of leading brothers... Not to forget the story of the sea gulls by Heartly. The monument stands there in Salt Lake as a memory of this miracle of LDS history - however sources and some environmental issues seems shed a new light, there were sea gulls and crickets, but ....

Very strictly analytical essays are those of May about the LDS membership statistics thru 150 years and Walker's fine overview of how LDS responded towards wars such as the American war, WW1 and WW2 etc. The wonderful essay of Flanders, Nauvoo revisited: it is more like a columnist writing about a period of LDS history which ended with the terrible murder of the prophet. An important essay is the case of how LDS maintained harmony is policy issues, such as polygamy, by Alexander.

Arrington, former church historian, takes us thru the historical sources in the archives. He introduces us to a world of hidden treasures, which change our perspective of LDS history, from strictly hierarchic to horizontal, from centre to periphery. Pillis' essay treats the rise of LDS in the early 1830s. It shows how environment can shape religious movements.

The remaining three essays - Ivins, Campell & Campell and Cannon II - are about polygamy. The first one is the most thrilling, because it is a sort of an ethnographic study of the practice itself, such as men seemed to marry several from the same family, such as sisters or mother/daugther, and as older the men got, the younger women they married. The second shows the other side of polygamy, the divorces. The third is about how polygamy continued even after the famous manifesto of 1890.

The book ends by B H Roberts and how he wants to write a history of church where every side is heard. Signature manages always to end the essays with this short writing by famous LDS. This book gives you a glimpse into a history not wished to be written and therefore it is a challenging history. It reshapes how we have viewed the past and hopefully shapes in a right way to handle the past. I am looking forward to such a collection of essay in twenty years.... Thank you Signature.

If mormon history interests you at all, this book is a great starting point. It contains a variety of essays of distinct issues in the history of mormonism. It introduces issues that are not part of the traditional history and are a subject of some controversy. Certainly worth owning if you are starting out on your study of mormonism. If you are well-read on mormon history, this book would probably contain nothing new.

During a brief period of time, the official Mormon Church historian was a true historian and was not afraid of disclosing the entire picture. This man was Leonard J. Arrington. D. Michael Quinn was a professor at BYU at the time and noted as the most knowledgeable Mormon historian. This book is a series of essays written during the golden age of Mormon history after Arrington was chosen as the historian and prior to his censorship because he was allowing too much negative information out. It was also prior to the excommunication of Quinn for writing books which let too much information out. Quinn and Arrington were both considered to be "good" Mormons at the time, but as historians felt the need to disclose both the good and bad. Mormon leadership has since made it very clear that Mormon teachings, Mormon scholarship and Mormon authors must "toe the line" and report only incidents which are faith promoting. This is an enlightening book.

Editor D. Michael Quinn (born 1944) is a historian who has focused on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From 1976 he was a professor at Brigham Young University, until he resigned in 1988. He is one of the "September Six" Mormons who were excommunicated or disfellowshipped in September 1993 for speaking against Church doctrine and leadership. He is also controversial for his sexual orientation (see his book Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A MORMON EXAMPLE.

Quinn writes in the Editor's Introduction to this 1992 book (published by Signature Books, which publishes many pathbreaking works about the LDS/Mormon church), "The 'New Mormon History,' for want of a better term, began with the publication of Juanita Brooks's The Mountain Meadows Massacre... The New Mormon History includes all of the ingredients of 'new history' in America at large but has one crucial addition: the effort to avoid using history as a religious battering ram... Not everyone has applauded the functional objectivity toward which the New Mormon Historians strive... Readers of this volume must judge for themselves... This collection features fifteen representative essays to demonstrate the impact of the New Mormon History in recent decades."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The records in church archives appear to be 'honest,' in the sense of preserving the facts as nearly as the desigated historians could determine them, and there appears to be very little--if any--destruction of or tampering with the records or the evidence." (Pg. 1-2)
"Testimony was collected in 1833 from almost a hundred people who had lived in the same general area where the prophet grew up, and their affidavits uniformly maligned the reputation of the Smith family... But attempts to discredit the information ... can never prove that the attitudes reflected in the affidavits were not current or that the information in them is necessarily wrong." (Pg. 63)
"Nineteenth-century Mormons were not noted for their careful observance of the Word of Wisdom, especially its proscriptions regarding alcohol and tobacco." (Pg. 129)
"Anthony Ivins's marriage record book also reveals that he solemnized more marriages during the (Joseph F.) Smith administration than during the two previous administrations combined... it would suggest that Joseph F. Smith did sanction a number of marriages during those first years of his presidency." (Pg. 211)

This would be a good book in a historiograpy class because it traces the development of how studying the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has gone and also treats current trends as well. The book is a good book, and is one of the good works by D. Michael Quinn. One should be warned however. The title says "Revisionist" meaning it is probably going to say some things that someone is not going to like, so keep the title in mind when you read this book. Also since the authors make it plain that this is a "Revisionist" work it would behoove the honest researcher to go find out what the authors are attempting to revise, meaning don't take this book as gospel, but find out both sides of the story before you come to conculsions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

We all need to break free of mind control, and this book has certainly opened up my mind. As Orwell sharply pointed out in his perennial work "1984", he who contolls the present controlls the passt, and he who controlls the past controlls the future. This is exactly what those mortmons are doing, and thank the stars that Michael Quinn has opend up mymind to the truth.

The directions of history are twords a more internal, keeping the sick myths alive, and blatently ingnoring the feet of clay of the church leaders. Michael Quinn has experinece in this area of clay feet, as his footnotes prove.

A footnoted lie is still a lie. "nuff said.

Quinn has a peiercing eye that sees thing that otehrs don't see, and that is the mark of a great man in my book. Ingenutity an the nove are the watchwords of our day.

Everyone should read this book, and everyone should belive this book.