This collection of narratives by four individuals who abandoned Mormonism--"apostates," as Brigham Young and other Latter-day Saint leaders labeled them--provides an overview of dissent from the beginning of the religion to the early twentieth century and presents a wide range of disaffection with the faith or its leaders. Instead of focusing on a single disheartened individual or sect, this collection includes dissenters with different motivations and a wide range of experiences. Some devout Mormon converts, finding Brigham Young's implementation of the Kingdom of God disillusioning, turned...

In 1857 President James Buchanan ordered U.S. troops to Utah to replace Brigham Young as governor and restore order in what the federal government viewed as a territory in rebellion. In this compelling narrative, award-winning authors David L. Bigler and Will Bagley use long-suppressed sources to show that--contrary to common perception--the Mormon rebellion was not the result of Buchanan's "blunder," nor was it a David-and-Goliath tale in which an abused religious minority heroically defied the imperial ambitions of an unjust and tyrannical government. They argue that Mormon leaders had...

Dale L. Morgan (1914 1971) remains one of the most respected historians of the American West and his career, one of the least understood. Among today s scholars his reputation rests largely on his studies of the fur trade and overland trails, yet throughout his life, Morgan s primary interest was the history of the Latter Day Saints. In this volume the first of a two-part set Morgan s writings on the Mormons finally receive the attention and analysis they merit."
Dale Morgan on the Mormons" is a far-reaching compilation of the historian s published and unpublished writings. Edited and...

During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright forever altered the future state's fate. Building a sawmill for Johann August Sutter, James Wilson Marshall struck gold. The rest may be history, but much of the story of what happened in the following year is told not in history books but in the letters, diaries, journals, and other written recollections of those whom the California gold rush drew west. In this second installment in the projected four-part collection The Great Medicine...