Jan Shipps is the president of the American Society of Church History and professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She is the author of Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition and coeditor of The Journals of William E. McLellin.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2002.— A Choice Outstanding Academic Title

• CoverTitleCopyrightContentsAcknowlegmentsPrologue1. Gentiles, Mormons, and the History of the American WestPART 1: STUDIES IN PERCEPTION2. From Satyr to Saint" American Perceptions pf the Mormons, 1860-19603. Surveying the Mormon Image since 19604. From Gentile to Non-Mormon: Mormon Perceptions of the Other5. Media Coverage of the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake CityPART 2: HISTORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND WRITING ABOUT RELIGIOUS HISTORY6. History, Her-story, and Their Story7. A Capsule Bibliography of Mormonism8. Remembering, Recovering, and Inventing What Being a People of God Means: Reflections on Method in the Scholarly Writing of Religious History9. Dangerous History: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Her Mormon Sisters10. Thoughts about the Academic Community's Response to John Brooke's Refiner's FirePART 3: PUTTING RELIGION AT THE HEART OF MORMON HISTORY AND HISTORY AT THE HEART OF MORMONISM11. The Reality of the Restoration in LDS Theology and Mormon Experience12. Brigham Young and His Times: A Continuing Force in Mormonism13. The Scattering of the Gathering and the Gathering of the Scattered: The Mid-Twentieth-Century Mormon DiasporaPART 4: DECIPHERING, EXPLICATING, CLARIFYING: EXERCISING AN INSIDE-OUTSIDER'S INFORMAL CALLING14. Joseph Smith and the Creation of LDS Theology15. Difference and Otherness: Mormonism and the American Religious MainstreamPART 5: HOW MY MIND WAS CHANGED AND MY UNDERSTANDING AMPLIFIED16. Is Mormonism Christian?: Reflections on a Complicated Question17. Knowledge and UnderstandingEpilogue: PassagesBack cover