Rarely does a biographer capture the sense of being in a different time and mindset to the extent that readers feel they are reliving events through the eyes of the biographer's subject. This is the skill of Dan Vogel.

The first Latter-day Saint temple ceremonies were performed, not in Kirtland, Ohio, but on the second floor of Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, Illinois. For nearly four years beginning in 1842, the prophet’s modest mercantile functioned as the de facto temple—the site of the first washings, anointings, endowments, and sealings. In contrast, the grand edifice known as the Nauvoo Temple was in operation for only two months...

James Henry Moyle was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, Commissioner of Customs under President Theodore Roosevelt, and special assistant to treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau. He was also president of the LDS Eastern States Mission.

Mormon polygamy began in Nauvoo, Illinois, a river town located at a bend in the Mississippi about fifty miles upstream from Mark Twain's Hannibal, Missouri. As Joseph Smith married some thirty-eight women, he introduced this "celestial" marriage form to his innermost circle of followers. By early 1846, nearly 200 men had adopted the polygamous lifestyle, with an average of nearly four women per man—717 wives in all, with more...

In Peculiar People, a wealth of resources chronicles the successes and failures of contemporary LDS homosexuals. Those who have chosen celibacy are occasionally admitted into full church fellowship. Others, fearing censure and humiliation, conceal their orientation. But many, perhaps a majority, have decided that they "will not go where they are not welcome" and drift away from the Mormon community that once nurtured them.

In the late 1820s a fiery young minister in western Ohio converted nearly 1,000 proselytes to the Reformed Baptist Movement. As these schismatics organized themselves into the new Disciples of Christ church, the Reverend Sidney Rigdon was already aligning himself with another, more radical movement, the Latter-day Saints, where he quickly became the LDS prophet's principal advisor and spokesman.

Available for the first time fifty years after the author's death, Studies of the Book of Mormon presents this respected church leader's investigation into Mormonism's founding scripture. Reflecting his talent for combining history and theology, B. H. Roberts considered the evident parallels between the Book of Mormon and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, a book that predated the Mormon scripture by seven years. If the Book of Mormon...

Recognized as a Mormon classic twenty years after its release,The Backslider features longstanding Christian conflicts played out in a scenic, sparsely populated area of southern Utah.

"Every September before school, Dad gave me a blessing and told me to be receptive to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I didn't particularly like the idea of the Holy Ghost following me around, checking up on what I was doing all the time, but Mom said I needed all the help I could get, particularly when it came to girls."

Two legislative bodies governed the Mormon community of Nauvoo, Illinois in the 1840s. The high council with its origins in Ohio began as a religious community's effort plan events and to settle disputes. In Nauvoo it was formalized as the governing body for the church. The city council gathered to pass ordinances on loose animals, impose taxes, and regulate alcohol, and more importantly, protection against arrest for Mormons, which...