Believing History: Latter-Day Saint Essays

Eminent historian Richard Lyman Bushman presents an engaging history of the Mormon religion that is full of intricate subplots and peculiar twists. He discusses the Book of Mormon's ambivalence toward republican government and its fascination with records, translation, and history, explores the culture of the Lamanites (the enemies of the favored people), and recasts Joseph Smith as an original thinker who offered the possibility of belief in a time of growing skepticism. Believing History is also a rare and honest confession in which Bushman reflects on his faith and ponders how scholars are to write about subjects in which they are personally invested. In this book, believers gain a whole new perspective on their religion, nonbelievers learn that Mormonism cannot be summed up with a simple label, and all are treated to a provocative and open look at a believing historian studying his own faith.