Census data is widely used by practitioners to understand demographic change, allocate resources, address inequalities, and make sound business decisions. Until recently, projects using US Census data have required proficiency with multiple web interfaces and software platforms to prepare, map, and present data products. This book introduces readers to tools in the R programming language for accessing and analyzing Census data and shows how to carry out demographic analyses in a single com...

Katharine Smith Salisbury was the longest-surviving member of the Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family. Her biography records a life of challenges, including overcoming religious prejudice and ostracism. Three of Katharine’s children die in infancy. the Salisburys were driven from Ohio and Missouri. Her husband only sporadically provided for the family, was outside the faith for a time, and died at age forty-four. After the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum, Katharine remained in Hancock County,...

Mormonism began with a single family—the family of Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. Just how did this family operate, and what characteristics did they exemplify? Although much has been written about this family, little has been produced with the intent of sifting through the historical records to reveal what kind of family this was.Through careful research, marriage and family therapists have developed several paradigms or models to facilitate family assessment, and these construct...

Younger brother of Joseph Smith, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Church Patriarch for a time, William Smith had tumultuous yet devoted relationships with Joseph, his fellow members of the Twelve, and the LDS and RLDS (Community of Christ) churches. Walker's imposing biography examines not only William's complex life in detail, but also sheds additional light on the family dynamics of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, as well as the turbulent intersections between the LDS and R...

The words, phrases, and stories of the New Testament permeate the English language. Indeed, this relatively small group of twenty-seven works, written during the height of the Roman Empire, not only helped create and sustain a vast world religion, but also have been integral to the largercultural dynamics of the West, above and beyond particular religious expressions.Unique among books that examine the Bible as literature, this brilliantly compact introduction offers an intr...

After seven years of silence, Guy Markenmore returns to his family home at Markenmore Court. Knowing his father Sir Anthony to be close to death, he is anxious to reassure his younger siblings that he will not make any claim to the family money even if he can't help inheriting the old man's title. Sir Anthony dies later that evening, but the question of the inheritance becomes academic when Guy is murdered whilst crossing the downs. It is now up to detective Blick to track down the person ...

Eminent biblical scholar Michael D. Coogan offers here a wide-ranging and stimulating exploration of the Old Testament, illuminating its importance as history, literature, and sacred text.Coogan explains the differences between the Bible of Jewish tradition (the "Hebrew Bible") and the Old Testament of Christianity, and also examines the different contents of the Bibles used by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Protestants. Coogan explores the use of invented dialog...

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 ...

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...

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, ...

Brigham Young was a rough-hewn New York craftsman whose impoverished life was electrified by the Mormon faith. Turner provides a fully realized portrait of this spiritual prophet, viewed by followers as a protector and by opponents as a heretic. His pioneering faith made a deep imprint on tens of thousands of lives in the American Mountain West.

Converts to Joseph Smith’s 1828 restoration of primitive Christianity were attracted to the non-hierarchical nature of the movement. It was precisely because there were no priests, ordinances, or dogma that people joined in such numbers. Smith intended everyone to be a prophet, and anyone who felt called was invited to minister freely without formal office.Not until seven years later did Mormons first learn that authority had been restored by angels or of the need for a hierarchy m...