Race and the Making of the Mormon People Paperback – September 11, 2017

Essential Reading on Mormon and American Religious History

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EarlyAmHist

December 29, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Terrific book that explores a unique and overlooked archive. Through meticulous and ambitious research, Mr. Mueller complicates overly simplistic assumptions about Mormon and American religious history. Readers suspicious about the value of understanding this past should give this book a careful read.

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Easy to read even for the non-academic

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Marti M.

January 1, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Easy to read even for the non-academic. Should appeal to those interested in American history as well as those curious about Mormonism.

An Outsider looks in on the LDS Church's Racial history

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Kevin F

September 21, 2017

Format: Kindle Edition

An important book. Like one of last year's top Mormon history books, Paul Reeves "Religion of a Different Color," Mueller tackles the issue of race in the Mormon Church. Unlike Reeves, who is an insider writing about outside perceptions, Mueller is an outsider looking in at the LDS Church's foundational scripture, the Book of Mormon, and written narratives by church leaders and other members on the topic of race. Definitions of race, he says, require written origin narratives. He traces the young church's initial efforts to teach Native Americans about the Book of Mormon, believing them to be the descendants of the Lamanites, and the initial welcoming posture towards free blacks in the 1830s and 1840s. Such views often put the Mormons at odds with their non-Mormon neighbors, and the Native Americans did not join the church in the numbers hoped for. Ultimately, 19th century narratives about race worked their way into the church's history, leading to a dramatically different view of race by the end of the 19th century. This is a very insightful work by an outsider holding up a mirror and daring us to look hard, see the reality, and craft new narratives that transcend race. In particular, he uses the dictated accounts of Jane Manning James, an early Black convert to the church who worked for Joseph Smith, and stayed active and involved for almost 70 years; and Arapeen, the brother of Ute War chief Wakara, both of whom joined the church, and then took issue with their treatment at the hands of Mormon settlers in Utah.

This is not an accusatory work. Mueller gives us an honest, carefully researched, and critically accurate analysis of how the LDS church viewed race, especially the perception of minority men and women who joined the church, and the troubling legacy it left with church membership, even now almost 40 years following the reversal of a controversial ban on priesthood and temple ordinances for members of African descent.

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How race influenced "the making of the Mormon people"

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Ohio Reader

September 28, 2017

Format: Paperback

Historian Max Mueller provides a fair, balanced, and detailed overview of Mormonism's complicated history with race. He's utilized numerous primary sources from people of color themselves, so the book is not just a recounting of white LDS Church leaders talking about race, but people like Jane Manning James and Native American convert Wakara telling their own stories (which, admittedly, were sometimes mediated by the fact that the stories were written down by whites). While many of the stories related to African Americans and the priesthood/temple ban were familiar to me, I didn't know much about the history of Native American Mormons in the nineteenth century, so that was particularly fascinating.

I also appreciated the book's larger perspective that Mormonism's changing racial views affected its overall sense of identity -- this is the "making of the Mormon people" part of the subtitle. After a more racially inclusive beginning to the religion, Mormon leaders charted a course in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to emphasize its "whiteness" and ties to Western civilization.

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A great example of thinking about America's racial past in a ...

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JosephS

November 13, 2017

Format: Paperback

Mueller provides an intriguing portrayal of Mormonism's simultaneous, and paradoxical, construction and deconstruction of race. He shows how this plays out in the narrative of the Book of Mormon and how it has, and still is, playing out within Mormon culture--how Mormons, who were, in certain ways, ahead of their time in regard to race relations in the first half of the 19th century, were and are "behind the times" in the second half of the 20th and currently in the 21st centuries.

A great example of thinking about America's racial past in a way that opens the possibility of a re-imagined future. Also a great source for those interested in the history of racial doctrines and policies--the whens and whys and hows--in the LDS Church.

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A novel take on a difficult theme

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STE

October 9, 2017

Format: Paperback

Mueller examines the history of race in the LDS Church, with the thesis that along with the religious novelties presented by Mormonism, the faith produced novel notions of race, namely a reframing of race in a quasi-universalist context, where race is malleable. Then, following the death of Joseph Smith, race ceased to be presently changeable, and discourse shifted towards ultimate redemption. In other words, race becomes religious through Mormonism, both positively and negatively. Mueller traces this history through deeper looks at central persons such as Wakara and Jane Manning James, but his perspective seems primarily geared around religious study and not necessarily raw history. The result is a fairly different treatment from historians such as W. Paul Reeve who have already dealt with the topic fairly extensively; Mueller seems more interested in teasing out the religious dynamics behind Mormon notions of race. An expansion of his 2015 dissertation, Mueller has brought us an fascinating perspective on a thorny topic.

The origin and persistence of Mormon racial attitudes was never so well explained.

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Most recent customer reviews

DGeible

Dr. Mueller introduced me to the origins of Mormon racism like no one before. He makes it clear that the original prophet of the church, Joseph Smith, held a more inclusive view...Read more

Published 5 months ago

Ben Tyner

Important, relevant scholarship

Mueller writes with empathetic clarity and nuance. This erudite volume delivers countless relevant insights on race and religion sure to inform readers' present politics.

Max Mueller’s most recent book, Race and the Making ...

St. Jane

Max Mueller’s most recent book, Race and the Making of the Mormon People, provides insights and background as to who, what, when, and why concerning the formation and evolution of...Read more

This is an important work of scholarship by a recognized ...

Strix

This is an important work of scholarship by a recognized historian of the social construction of race in the U.S.Read more

I value Mueller’s astute reflections on the intersecting trajectories of race and Mormonism in the US.

Patrice McShane

Five Stars

Scholarly approach to a complex issue. I better understand the Mormon Religion and the interconnection of race and religion.

LizzyKate

Worthwhile read