Beginning in the 1830s, at least thirty-three women married Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. These were passionate relationships which also had some longevity, except in cases such as that of two young sisters, one of whom was discovered by Joseph’s first wife, Emma, in a locked bedroom with the prophet. Emma remained a steadfast opponent of polygamy throughout her life.The majority of Smith’s wives were younger than he, and one-third were between fourteen and twenty years o...

Plural marriage in the Nauvoo era of LDS Church history has long been a fascinating subject. To understand it fully requires one to look at it from the perspective of the man who introduced it, but just as crucial is a dive into the lives of the women he married, all who have their stories to tell. In his 1997 award-winning study, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Todd Compton focused on the thirty-three women who he could demonstrate that Smith married, prov...

Winner of the Juanita Brooks Prize in Mormon StudiesWinner of the Evans Biography Award, the John Whitmer Historical Society Best Biography Award, and the Francis Armstrong Madsen Best Book AwardFrontiersman, colonizer, missionary to the Indians, and explorer of the American West, Jacob Hamblin has long been one of the most enigmatic figures in Mormon history. In this defining biography, Todd Compton examines and disentangles many of the myths and controversies surrounding H...

Many Mormon dreams flourished in Missouri. So did many Mormon nightmares.The Missouri period--especially from the summer of 1838 when Joseph took over vigorous, personal direction of this new Zion until the spring of 1839 when he escaped after five months of imprisonment--represents a moment of intense crisis in Mormon history. Representing the greatest extremes of devotion and violence, commitment and intolerance, physical suffering and terror--mobbings, battles, massacres, and pol...

"Boy Kings," or Big Tech Tyrants, are considered the most powerful individuals in the world. They're the autocratic aristocrats who run the tech giants in Silicon Valley, and these social platform operators have gained a non-elected (or, should we say, a self-elected) authoritarian power. They wield it with more effectiveness and precision than any sitting government or military strategist.Big Tech Tyrants boast riches beyond emperors of old but act like juveniles who don't want to...

“How do you talk to a child about death? Start here. This beautiful book helps contextualize loss, and provides a beautiful memory to share with the family member who will be left behind.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways Do you know how you want to be remembered? Through this special children’s memory book, share the many ways we can remember each other, from eating strawberries in the spring to playing dress up with friends or watching fireflies light up th...

START YOUR DREAM BUSINESS WITHOUT THE RISK!Too often people hold the dream of starting their own business and pursuing their destiny, but they are overcome not just by fear, but by the practical reality that they can not afford to take a financial risk. Third Shift Entrepreneur overcomes that false choice of settling for less or taking a financial risk and instead reveals a third path—one that allows you to fulfill your creative entrepreneurial potential w...

Founder of the largest indigenous Christian church in American history, Joseph Smith published the 584-page Book of Mormon when he was twenty-three and went on to organize a church, found cities, and attract thousands of followers before his violent death at age thirty-eight. Richard Bushman, an esteemed cultural historian and a practicing Mormon, moves beyond the popular stereotype of Smith as a colorful fraud to explore his personality, his relationships with others, and how he received ...

A gripping account of the mob killing of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism“American Crucifixion paints a brilliant picture of religious experimentation, public intolerance, and the making of a martyr.”—Chicago TribuneOn June 27, 1844, in the dusty frontier town of Carthage, Illinois, Joseph Smith and three of his associates waited anxiously in a jail cell. The dynamic founding prophet of Mormonism no longer had a congregation to p...

In the early 1820s a young boy named Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him to found a new church. Thus began Mormonism, a faith that has grown to thirteen million members worldwide. The Mormon Contradiction: In Their Own Words offers the reader an insight into what the Mormon Church is really all about, including: Where the Book of Mormon really came from Joseph Smiths personal history and use of Occultism and Freemasonry The original accoun...

From the author of A Midwife's Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for History,and The Age of Homespun--a revelatory, nuanced, and deeply intimate look at the world of early Mormon women whose seemingly ordinary lives belied an astonishingly revolutionary spirit, drive, and determination.A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, ...

On September 11, 1857, a band of Mormon militia, under a flag of truce, lured unarmed members of a party of emigrants from their fortified encampment and, with their Paiute allies, killed them. More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter. Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping...