Classic Texts
Books in this category precede the last fifteen years, and stand the test of time as Mormon Studies "classics."
Thomas G. Alexander
Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Leonard J. Arrington
Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.
Philip L. Barlow
Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-Day Saints in American Religion. New York: Oxford, 1991.
Richard L. Bushman
Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Richard L. Bushman
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Todd M. Compton
In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997.
Kathryn Daynes
More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher
Women of the Covenant: The Story of the Relief Society. Salt Lake: Deseret Book, 1992.
Kathleen Flake
The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Terryl L. Givens
By The Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion. New York: Oxford, 2002.
Sarah Barringer Gordon
The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Armand L. Mauss
The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Gregory A. Prince
Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995.
D. Michael Quinn
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998.
D. Michael Quinn
Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997.
D. Michael Quinn
Origins of Power. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994.
D. Michael Quinn
Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.
Jan Shipps
Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Wallace Stegner
The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Susan Taber
Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.