DiaBLOGue

Be advised: a biography that thanks “team members” for accommodating “impossible scheduling” just might be thrown together hastily. And in spite of an attempt to lend an aura of authenticity to the book by acknowledging…

That last bastion of privacy—our personal diaries—has now been turned into a “program.” From the pulpit, we are admonished to keep diaries; we are treated to snatches of personal diaries in sacrament meeting, we are…

In an earlier best-seller, Loose Change, Sara Davidson documented the impact of the Sixties on her fictionalized self and two other intelligent females. Real Property moves on into the Seventies, but not in novel form.…

We Mormons put a lot of stock in the Local Boy Makes Good syndrome: we’re proud of our Osmonds, our Marriotts, our Jack Andersons, and we’re anxious to let people out there know that we…

Mormons have long embraced the Constitution of the United States as a special document, even at times citing its various provisions as quasi-scripture. While scriptural evidence supports the view that the Constitution was, or perhaps…

The Mormon intellectual establishment is still relatively young, so it continues to react nervously to publications on Mormonism written by non-Mormons. Serious non-Mormon interpretations often generate more anxiety among practicing Mormon historians and social scientists…

With the exception of a handful of standouts, such as Donna Hill’s work on Joseph Smith, biographies by Mormons of Mormons have been scarcely worth the title. Often reminiscent of mimeographed Christmas letters, these books…

The major theme of Eugene England’s biography is the flowering of Brigham Young’s personality. His strict Methodist upbringing suppressed Brigham’s natural forces and made him a watchful, cautious, somewhat skeptical young man. The Gospel, Joseph…