The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History
By Darren Parry, Northwest Band of Shoshone Chairman
Even though the Bear River Massacre was a defining event in the history of the Northwest
Band of the Shoshone, in Parry’s retelling the massacre did not trap his people in
death, but offered them rebirth. While never flinching from the realities of Latter-day
Saint encroachment on Shoshone land and the racial ramifications of America’s spread
westward, Parry offers messages of hope. As storyteller for his people, Parry brings
the full weight of Shoshone wisdom to his tales—lessons of peace in the face of violence,
of strength in the teeth of annihilation, of survival through change, and of the pliability
necessary for cultural endurance. These are arresting stories told disarmingly well.
What emerges from the margins of these stories is much more than a history of a massacre
from the Shoshone perspective, it is a poignant meditation on the resilience of the
soul of a people.
PURCHASE BOOK
Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier
By Benjamin E. Park
Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, treated as fringe
cultists at best or marginalized as polygamists unworthy of serious examination at
worst. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, the historian Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, and
in the process demonstrates that the Mormons are, in fact, essential to understanding
American history writ large. Drawing on newly available sources from the LDS Church—sources
that had been kept unseen in Church archives for 150 years—Park recreates one of the
most dramatic episodes of the 19th century frontier.
PURCHASE BOOK
Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism
By Taylor G. Petrey
Taylor G. Petrey's trenchant history takes a landmark step forward in documenting
and theorizing about Latter-day Saints (LDS) teachings on gender, sexual difference,
and marriage. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in
gender theory and American religious history since World War II. His challenging conclusion
is that Mormonism is conflicted between ontologies of gender essentialism and gender
fluidity, illustrating a broader tension in the history of sexuality in modernity
itself.
PURCHASE BOOK
Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black
Mormon
Railroading Religion: Mormons, Tourists, and the Corporate Spirit of the West
