This book introduces two major theoretical perspectives that have been consistently overlooked: the performance nature of confession, and the incorrect classification of confession as only a subset of autobiography. As this book demonstrates, confession is not always autobiographical but is always performative.

The quest for effective community leadership, a persistent theme in world history, is the central theme of this path-breaking analysis of the confluence of community building and an underappreciated group of community leaders: the Latter-day Saint bishops. This study focuses on ecclesiastical leadership in the settlements of the nineteenth-century American West that were founded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Bishops were at the heart of an expansive, inspiring, and unprecedented experience in community building. They exerted a greater direct...