Learn more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including historical findings about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and more.
Philip Barlow is a scholar at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. He has also served as the Leonard Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. Although not as well known as Truman G. Madsen or Terryl Givens, Barlow is considered one of today’s leading Latter-day Saint intellectuals. In this interview, he discusses the roles of his faith and intellectualism.
Martin Harris is perhaps most closely associated with the loss of the 116 pages. A new biography, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon, demonstrates Harris’s commitment to the Latter-day Saint scripture. Susan Easton Black explains the biography’s backstory and highlights lesser-known event from the life of Martin Harris.
Grant Hardy is the editor of the Maxwell Institute Study Edition of the Book of Mormon. In this interview, he explains how the book came to be and why it includes an Emma Smith testimony not found in regular editions of the Book of Mormon.
Harvard Heath is retired curator of the Utah and American West Archives at the Harold B. Lee Library, and the editor of “Confidence Amid Change: The Presidential Diaries of David O. McKay, 1951-1970.” President McKay’s biographies were made possible thanks to the efforts of Clare Middlemiss.
W. W. Phelps was one of the 10 most influential members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its first 15 years, according to Bruce Van Orden. His contributions stand alongside those of Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, and Heber C. Kimball.
The fourth volume of the Joseph Smith Papers “Revelations and Translations” series is a research gold mine for scholars working on issues related to Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham. Robin Jensen, the volume’s co-editor, answers questions about the latest Joseph Smith Papers Volume and explains why it is a landmark publication.
Spencer Fluhman will never forget the summer of 1999. The 26-year-old college student was a participant in one of the first summer seminars ever conducted by Richard Bushman, the noted Columbia University historian and biographer of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Devery Anderson is the marketing manager for Signature Books and the author/editor of several books, including “Salt Lake School of the Prophets: 1867-1883” (Signature Books, 2018). He explains that Brigham Young reinstituted the School of the Prophets started by Joseph Smith.
SALT LAKE CITY — Barbara Jones Brown has a well-earned reputation as a gifted historian and writer, but her relationship with history had a rough beginning. In college, she was turned off by the way professors taught history and found it entirely unrelatable.
Most Latter-day Saints grew up knowing about the Comprehensive History of the Church written by B. H. Roberts. What’s not as well known is that the history is filled with errors common to the time—much like the Journal of Discourses. In this interview, Matt Grow describes how Saints is different than earlier Church histories.