This book engages with Mormon Studies from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the end of the 20th century. It covers those who fought over Mormonism's truth or falsity, on those who tried to understand Mormonism as a religious and sociological phenomenon, and on those who explored the history of Mormonism from a more dispassionate perspective.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: When Intellectuals and Academics Do Mormonism
• 1. The Polemics and Apologetics of Mormon “Otherness”
• 2. Intellectuals, Academics, and Mormon “Otherness”
• 3. The “Old” Mormon Studies
• 4. The “New” Mormon Studies
• 5. Social Theory, Social Movements and Mormon Origins
• 6. Culture Theory and Mormon Origins
• 7. Mormon Studies and Its Discontents: The “New” Mormon Culture War
• Conclusion: Whither Mormon Studies?
• Bibliography