Item Detail
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30838
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3
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2
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English
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Converting Mormon History
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Journal of Mormon History
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2009
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35
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3
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Layton, Utah
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Mormon History Association
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226-230
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"AS A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORIAN trained in early modern British and European history, I find that Mormon history lies admittedly outside most of my formal training. However, when I bring that perspective to Mormon history research projects, I am repeatedly struck by the continued emphasis on “history from above” in Mormon historiography. While there are numerous examples of Mormon history that focus on “history from below,” much of Mormon history begins with Joseph Smith and the biographies of Church leaders. (This pattern seems to be particularly true in books.) I am most interested in a New Mormon History that pushes history from below even further—that starts to look at the Mormon experience beyond the context of early America and Joseph Smith or nineteenth-century frontier life and a history that pushes beyond the purely biographical, whether of leaders or of members. Joseph Smith will always garner deserved scholarly attention, but I wonder how our understanding of his impact would expand if we began a story of Mormonism with a convert’s experience. The central question I have is: What would Mormon history look like if we began with the converts instead of the converters?" [Author]