American Zion: A New History of Mormonism

by Benjamin E. Park

The first major history of Mormonism in a decade, drawing on newly available sources to reveal a profoundly divided faith that has nevertheless shaped the nation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in the so-called burned-over district of western New York, which seemed to produce seers and prophets daily. Most of the new creeds flamed out; Smith’s would endure. How Mormonism succeeded―and how it has fundamentally shaped American culture―is the story told by historian Benjamin Park in American Zion . While most prior accounts of the Mormons treat them as a monoculture existing outside the main currents of American life, Park is one of the first to demonstrate that Mormonism became central to American views of religious liberty and minority rights―and that Mormonism has been riven by deep internal divisions over gender, race, and sexuality. An enthralling narrative account of this nation’s most important homegrown religion, American Zion will be seen as the definitive history of Mormonism for years to come. 55 images

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, American History, Mormonism, Lds, Audiobook

528 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2025

Reviews

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good overview, certainly worth the time if it’s a subject you’re curious about, but still find myself realizing the more I learn the more I find gaps within my own understanding of the Mormon history and culture. No fault of the author, it’s a subject that’s more ingrained into the American experience than most of us are often even aware of, and that’s where my ignorance becomes the matter of being disappointed this book’s 512 isn’t 1,000 pages- it certainly still would’ve captivated me.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is, of course, a very abbreviated history since the Church has roots going back over 200 years and there are millions of members all over the world. It is also a history focused on the controversies and in-fighting among Church leaders. I understand why this is the case. The controversial stuff makes a history interesting and I
did find this history very interesting. Park is a good writer and I learned some things I didn't know, even though I have read quite a bit of Church history. Be aware that this is not a devotional history. If you're a member and tend to be defensive about criticisms of the Church this probably isn't for you. As a general history though, I thought this was an interesting and well-written read.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never sat down to read a book of Mormon History before. When I was a young Mormon it sounded boring, I'd already spent so many hours in class and at church learning church history. When I was older and had left the church, it was something I wanted to leave behind. But I decided to sit down with this one, having followed Park's work for a while.

For non-Mormon readers, it should serve as a good introduction to the church's full history, warts and all. I suspect many readers will be surprised to find that the faith was one of the biggest targets of religious violence in the 19th century, and to see the breadth of identities the church has had over its nearly 200 year history. The most common criticisms of the church, it turns out, are less about Mormons specifically and more about common practices and philosophies of the 19th century. It takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of the way people attack the church's founding story when you see that actually it was a pretty typical founding story for religious sects of the time. In its early days, it is surprisingly normal.

For Mormon and post-Mormon readers, it is a strange experience. It frustrated me to see how different church history looked when presented in a historical context, how much of the church's teachings and philosophies and culture were simply a response to the times. However, it's hard to get too angry about it when you can also see how much the church was targeted by governments, other churches, and just about anyone else who came in their path. The way we tell our own story cannot help but be colored by the way we have been punished for living it.

It is inevitable that it will be too fast. It would have to be a multi-volume work to provide the kind of context and color that I often wanted. A whole year's worth of class I'd taken condensed into 100 pages or so, sometimes it made my head spin. But to make it a single readable volume, I think Park has done about as well as you can do. His choice to make the last 20 years of most recent history the object of so much attention is clearly a deliberate one, I'm not sure it's what I would have chosen. Although maybe that's simply because I already knew almost all of it so well having lived through it.

Park makes a clear effort to include the stories of women and people of color as much as possible, often as anecdotal color, along the way since the capital-h history itself is almost entirely the story of white men.

My only real critique is that I feel the work, and Park's thesis, should be more complex. At first Mormonism is a product of a unique American time and thought, but there is a definite period where the church's history does not run in parallel to America's history, where instead it runs in the opposite direction. It rejoins again, and then it becomes a story of assimilation. Park gets all these threads but I didn't see them as clearly reflected in the thesis as I think they could have been. Mormon history runs in a very similar track to American history, but the parts where America is outright at odds with Mormonism are, I think, a crucial element that still plays a major role in the faith no matter how much they want to be accepted.

I breezed through this on audio, and found it very easy to follow in that medium, though the narrator makes a couple of pronunciation errors. (Moroni and Manti are the worst offenders.)

[♥Milica♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of over 500 pages that still feels too short, but a good historical overview nonetheless. It could be a good starter for someone who doesn't know much about the LDS church, or even a "condensed" version for people who do, but need to brush up on their history.

I found myself enjoying the 1900s chapters a lot, those were the ones where I learned the most new-to-me information.

The ending seemed a bit rushed, so I have a feeling Mr Park will have to write even more books to make up for that!! I'm kidding, but please do write more books.

The Saints series is already on my tbr, but after reading this I feel like I should prioritise it. I literally have the audiobooks just sitting on my Deseret Bookshelf app...it's time.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

TLDR: nearly a complete summary of everything I’ve learned in the past 12 years studying church history condensed into an accessible, engaging, book. Plus new content. Come for the history, sob over the politics and machinations.

Loved it!

Reread for book club at 2.5x speed. Still great. 12.2025

[Abram · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is unfortunate that Park's work, which while rough does include some historic gems (who knew that east coast suffragettes helped disenfranchise Utah women in the late 19th century? I certainly did not), fails to live up to the boundaries it sets for itself.

The first boundary the work crosses, more academic in nature, is that it claims to be 1) a history and 2) a history of Mormonism writ large, not the institution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The idea that this is a history is at least partially negated by the final chapter or two, which deal with events so recent they are more appropriately addressed with journalistic, rather than historical, techniques. The second is negated by the majority of the action taking place essentially confined to the leaders and academics associated with the institution, not members of the movement. The author is inconsistent to the point of negligence in his use of vocabulary, with "Mormon" being taken to mean the broader cultural movement that grew out of Joseph Smith's original claims, anyone who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and anyone associated with the wider movement at various places in the work. Add this to the continuing conversation around the preferred name of the institution of the church, and you have a morass that makes it unclear who the author is referencing at any given time. It is also worth noting that this muddle ignores the existence of a small (or not so small, depending on how international you want to get) group within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that are members but are not and do not consider themselves "Mormon". Park's emphasis on the internal diversity of the "Mormons" is apparently not wide enough to encompass these groups.

The second boundary breached by Park is the idea of this work as a decade-defining work for Mormon studies scholarship. It is possible that the claim that this is the first authoritative history of Mormonism in a decade is more marketing material than true belief. However, given this is most definitively not a history of Mormonism writ large but rather a history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with some wider Mormon events thrown in as a desultory feint toward context (think under-seasoned food), it necessarily comes into contact and conversation with the ongoing publications of the Saints books by the Church itself. Reasonable people will point out that the Saints project has to be viewed critically, as all institutional autobiographies should be: Those same people remain reasonable if they concede that Park as an institution, and the institutions that he is affiliated with, suffer from similar biases, and that both groups are exercising the right to tell their own stories.

The reasoning behind framing Park's work as an institution telling its own story is due to his preoccupation with the relationship between the hierarchy of the Church and the academy. Though to my personal taste extremely dull subject matter, his writing is at its best when he describes the interplay between individuals in both camps (sometimes individuals that belong to both camps) in the early 20th century. This is clearly a well-researched area for him, and he constructs an excellent overview, and keeps the biases of the institution he is representing most directly well within check.

Overall, however, the depth of historical analysis was wanting. While it may appeal to the "I-never-learned-this-in-Sunday-School" crowd, the vast majority of the material covered is nearly rote for those who have taken a glance at the advances in our understanding of the history of the LDS Church in the past two decades. This is coupled with some, though none particularly glaring, omissions of events in Church history, and an almost complete lack of rigorous analysis beyond a few one-liners heavy on supposition. A history of Mormonism, set against its proper context, naturally raises a few questions, many of them starting with "why" and "how". Why did Mormons embrace polygamy when it didn't stick with any of their contemporary, and equally experimental, religious groups? How did a religion of the American frontier come to exercise an outsized amount of influence on the republic that persecuted it for half a century or more? These are basic questions that Park fails to solidly ask, let alone answer.

This failure of analysis seems to be intertwined with the author's mode of historical inquiry. Park takes an unabashed "great man" view of the history. This is not only bad practice according to none other than Leo Tolstoy (I, too, can name drop literary figures that have little connection to the topic at hand in support of my arguments), but is constantly undermined by short paragraphs detailing how initiatives proposed and implemented at the top failed to find root in the body of the saints. In nearly all of history, the focus on the writings of "important people" can be excused due to the lack of available resources and records. For those familiar with the Mormon faith tradition, specifically the injunction to keep journals, this argument does not hold water. Were it not for Park's infrequent but fairly undisciplined use of statistics throughout the work, a statistical analysis of those combined texts might paint a more compelling picture of the history as a whole.

A final, and light, objection to this work is the possibility of bias on the part of the author. While in no way representing a hatchet job, and in many instances maintaining a remarkable degree of academic detachment which is to be commended, there are instances, ranging from the failure to defuse the arguments of 19th century figures claiming women entering polygamous marriages were essentially brainwashed, to a rosier-than-life depiction of normal members' acceptance into the mainstream in the 20th century, to phraseology around the Book of Mormon musical that appears to support the idea of Mormons as gullible but nice individuals, that all, taken together, appear as some evidence of disdain on the part of the author towards adherents of Mormonism. It is entirely possible that this reader, conditioned (partially by knowing enough of the history presented in this book) to view the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as an organization whose adherents are given only provisional access to mainstream America's acceptance, has picked out a pattern where there is none. It is also important to acknowledge that the scholarship involved more than compensates for this possible shortcoming, and that, even if true, it detracts very little from the value of the work.

Park's analysis seems unlikely to remain significant for any extended period of time. It will likely be read, as this reader has done, as part of a few book clubs among the more liberal element attached to the faith, and then simply forgotten or eclipsed by more consistent and thorough works. It will, however, remain as part of the limited but growing works illuminating the history of a deeply peculiar people and faith.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew! This was a dense book. I really enjoyed Park's other book, "Kingdom of Nauvoo," so I decided to try this one. This book covers the history of the Latter-day Saints, from Joseph Smith's first vision to the present day. It was published in 2024, so it's very up-to-date. Many topics and time periods were discussed, making it more of an overview than a deep dive into any specific issue. It was fascinating and well-written. The author did a decent job of presenting the history objectively, although, at times, I could see his bias shining through.

The first 20 percent of the book focuses on Joseph Smith and the church's founding. Honestly, I didn't feel like I learned anything new from this section since I've already researched and read a lot about this period. I also thought I had a pretty good grasp of the Brigham era. The period I was least familiar with concerning church history was the 1910s to the 1990s, and boy was that a wild ride. Some aspects made me uncomfortable, and some things I hadn't realized before. It was fascinating to see how much church policy and practice were influenced by the era and the leaders' opinions. It also made me reflect on how much of today's church culture exists merely due to tradition rather than doctrinal reasons.

Regarding where this book fits within church history rhetoric, I have read three of the four "Saints" books published by the church. I believe Park's book does not replace those works; instead, it provides an additional perspective and a different angle. Park discusses numerous historians and more progressive members. The Saints books often highlight the faith experiences of individual members and the global church experience. In contrast, this book primarily focuses on American Mormon history, which is fitting considering the title. Another comparison is that Saints uses more faith-based and flowery language, whereas Park's book emphasizes history and context. Both are useful in understanding the history of the church.

This book may make some more conservative members cranky, but I enjoyed it. I'm an active church member, though I like to think I'm more progressive or at least trying to figure out how to be.

[Walter Swingle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent history of the LDS/Mormon church that pays particular attention to its complicated relationship with US culture and politics. The book draws heavily from secondary scholarship and newly available sources. The writing is great and the insights plentiful. Park is an expert on the Nauvoo period(his previous book on the topic is also excellent!) but my favorite parts of this book were the chapters on the twentieth century. These are central to understanding the evolution of the church from its early nineteenth century origins to today. Highly recommend!

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sprawling history that manages not to be too dense, though maybe that’s only because I grew up Mormon and was intensely fascinated. Now I’m just going to ramble for too long about some takeaways that stuck with me.

The tension between Joseph Smith’s (the first Mormon prophet) family and Brigham Young (the second Mormon prophet, and the namesake of BYU) following Joseph’s death. How Mormonism is a uniquely American faith, yet many early saints viewed the US government’s treatment of their faith as oppressive and divorced from its own founding principles.

Some early Mormons viewed the persecution of Indigenous tribes as comparable to how the state treated their religion. First of all, no. Second of all, Mormons identified all tribes under the umbrella term “Lamanite,” and went on to establish American Indian Boarding Schools, whose attendees were taught they were “apples” — red on the outside but white on the inside ( Y I K E S ). Similar teachings were relayed to Black saints — they were promised to be perfected in heaven, which meant turning white ( Y I K E S ).

(I also learned about how Reconstruction Era reforms pitted American Indians and Black Americans against one another. That is not particularly related, it was just grim. Oppression always hinges on preventing coalition building among vulnerable groups. Always. Because there is no way for people hoarding power and wealth to win when everyone else stands together. Okay back to my book review.)

Mormons have long pursued wider acceptance by Christianity and mainstream culture. As Mormonism grew, its members wanted Utah to gain official statehood and to expand the faith’s reach globally. To this end, they made concessions, especially about (at least public practice of) polygamy. Polygamy was once a central and cherished Mormon principle, yet from the beginning the practice was often hidden from first wives, and later generations did their best to downplay polygamy’s relevance to Mormonism.

Mormonism distinguished itself in the beginning with personal revelation, but with time became highly hierarchical and esoteric. Assassinations of core leaders dropped off steeply after a rocky start. Increasingly older white men stood at the helm, whose revelations happened to include a ton of racism, sexism, and queerphobia.

Even as they sanitized their own history, church leaders became more vocal about new problematic policies. Mormon doctrine became more regressive about race and gender, forbidding Black saints to participate in ordinances necessary to achieve the highest level of salvation. As attitudes about race began shifting during the Civil Rights Movement, homosexuality was promptly identified as a new target.

The church faced a tricky balancing act, between affirming that the Lord speaks through living prophets and wishing some of those prophets did not do a lot of what they did (child brides, I’m referring to pedophilia) and did not say a lot of what they said (Elder Holland giving a strangely vicious talk about muskets in reference to people with “same-sex challenge” existing).

Was Heavenly Father really in favor of segregation until 1978? How can Mormons undermine the authority of past prophecies without implicating the discernment of current and future prophets? Why would God urge a wide-sweeping “I’m a Mormon” campaign and then five years later ask that no one use the term again? Why would the Lord choose to speak through men who allowed their personal biases to leech into the supposedly divine?

Benjamin Park provides a measured history about the dimensions and tensions within the church, casting prominent figures with nuance. I believe he strikes a fair tone, making it clear when evidence is scarce and laying out timelines and primary sources rather than trying to manipulate a certain narrative into being. His voice is most prominent in the conclusion, but I liked it. I don’t know who this book’s audience necessarily is, other than me, but it most definitely includes me.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

"American Zion" is more polemics than history, which would be fine except for Park's clear contention that he is presenting unbiased, fact-based history. He is not. What Park offers in "American Zion" is historical data wielded to buttress partisan arguments -- not partisan in the U.S. electoral sense, but rather in the sense of the progressive/conservative schism internal to the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Park has an obvious stance in this Mormon culture war, and "American Zion" is an articulation of that stance, as well as a critique of Park's ideological foes. Again, my primary, and significant, gripe with "American Zion" is not the content or Park's positions, but rather the fact that this volume is disingenuously billed as unbiased, scholarly history, which it is not.

Content-wise "American Zion" was most interesting in the later chapters tracing developments in the LDS Church from the late-1990s to the present. I have read D. Michael Quinn's exhaustive and excellent historical trilogy on the development of power and authority in the LDS Church, and consequently nothing Park raises was new to me. Rather, because "American Zion" covers so much ground in 400 pages, I consistently felt that Park was skipping off the surface of critical, important, and fascinating events and themes, like Brigham Young's spats with Orson Pratt, Joseph F. Smith's redefinition of priesthood, the LDS church's fiscal crisis due to Henry Moyle's building fiasco in the 1960s and the subsequent mechanization of missionary work to try to pay for all the ill-considered construction, etc. I don't fault Park for failing to flesh out these events, since doing so would require something like Quinn's 2,500 pages. But prospective readers should know that the trade-off of a readable 400 page "history" of the LDS church from 1830 through 2023 is that there's not much depth. Again, I recommend Quinn's fantastic books for depth and rigor.

"American Zion's" serviceability lies in the fact that it's the only treatment of LDS history that covers the full 21st century, including the church's struggles with LGBTQ issues, as well as its continuing problems with race and gender. But because these issues are so divisive, it's hard to be academic about them. That said, Park doesn't seem to really try in this regard. His word choice and commentary betrays his disenchantment with the orthodoxy flowing from LDS headquarters. Unbecoming to a historian, in my view, Park casts clear heroes and villains, with Mormons of color, progressive women of the 19th century through today, certain outgunned general authorities, and young 21st century activists as Davidian figures heroically facing down the Goliath-like aged and backward establishment led by hopelessly conservative white men drunk on power.

Though I do not disagree with all, or even most, of Park's perspectives, his characterizations are wildly simplistic. Any thoughtful observer intuitively understands that activists and agitators often do not see the big picture, and conservative stances do not per se equate with oppression and unyielding fidelity to tradition. Again, Park is not necessarily wrong in how he presents reality; he simply fails in "American Zion" to perform the basic work of a historian: present facts, offer multiple angles on issues, analyze and draw conclusions with fairness and sympathy. Doing so lends much more credibility than Park has earned with "American Zion."

[Brian Hauglid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, from a Cambridge-trained Latter-day Saint historian and professor of history at Sam Houston State University, is a bonafide history of Mormonism. It applies the tools of historical research and seeks to interpret Mormon history through the lens of historical analysis. This is quite refreshing since it can be difficult for trained historians who work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be as open and transparent with the knottier issues of Mormon history such as polygamy, feminism, (right-wing) politics, or LGBTQ acceptance. But, in his book, I think Dr. Park is fair-minded and does a good job of weaving these threads throughout the almost two centuries of Mormonism's various iterations with skill and balance.

Some Latter-day Saints may fault Dr. Park for not engaging in devotion enough or upset at Park's framing of Joseph Smith and others as the flawed humans that they were (a continuing tension since Mormonism's inception). That is an unfortunate criticism since there's plenty of room for the devotional and non-devotional approaches as long as they both try to be true to historical fact. In the case of American Zion, Ben Park succeeds in making the messy history of Mormonism accessible and relatable to other flawed and imperfect human beings in a non-threatening manner.

He also deftly and convincingly shows (as initially laid out in the Prologue) Mormonism's heterogeneous nature rife with conflict and intrigue both within Mormonism itself and with its sectarian offshoots. But this is not all. Park's history includes Mormonism's successes and failures with the fledgling American project too. All this underscores the tenuous and fraught states of this new American religion and its gradual and, some might even say, miraculous survival.

I think this book will stay on people's shelves for a long time to come. I highly recommend it.

[Beth Given · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I've spent years in seminary (as both student and teacher) and Sunday School studying "Church History" -- that is, church history from 1820-1847. Very little is ever said about anything outside of this time period, save for maybe the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies, and the history recounting never includes such thorny topics as polygamy or racism. This book, written independently of the institution of the Church, recounts a much more complete history of the Church in America. This book was pretty long and sometimes a little hard to follow on audio, but overall I really enjoyed this. I especially liked hearing the history of the Relief Society and the progressive movements within the Church in the early part of the twentieth centuries, as well as the progressive and feminist thought that resulted from second wave feminism.

This book does seem to focus on the intellectuals and historians -- Juanita Brooks, Leonard Arrington, and Michael Quinn are all prominently mentioned, as well as patterns of progressivism and retrenchment at BYU. This makes sense as the author, Benjamin Park, could be counted as one of the great intellectuals/historians in modern Mormonism. Personally, I found this fascinating, though I imagine many would appreciate more focus on faithful members and their stories. (Those people have the Church-published book Saints for that, though).

I read Kingdom of Nauvoo before this one, but you definitely don't need to.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 4 out of 5]

"American Zion: A New History of Mormonism" is an excellent 400+ page overview of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (with some minor coverage of other Mormon movements, most notably the Community of Christ and the fundamentalists). As a member and a reader of LDS church history, most of what this book covered wasn't new to me, but the book did fill in a few gaps and contextualize aspects of that history that were less well known to me, including particularly J. Reuben Clark and some of the more liberal academic Mormon voices of the 1960s and 1970s.

It would be interesting to compare and contrast this book to the LDS Church's "Saints" series (of which 3 of 4 volumes have been published). I have not yet read "Saints" but that series is of course church-sanctioned and more focused on stories of faith, conversion, and church service than is "American Zion" - and hence, less interested in pursuing the political and theological controversies (though I understand they are still touched upon, though of course from a church-friendly perspective). "Saints" also incorporates more global voices, whereas "American Zion" is focused on Mormonism's relationships vis-à-vis the United States. Indeed, the focus point of "American Zion" is on the social and political changes experienced by Mormons as they adapted themselves to the American mainstream, as well as the extent to which Mormonism has played a part in American culture wars, from the 1800s to today. For a more holistic picture of LDS church history, one might want to consider reading "American Zion" and "Saints" alongside each other.

While Ben Park intentionally seeks to not sermonize - but to present history as it happened - it is difficult for the modern more moderate to liberal reader to not lament the more conservative turn that the Church took following the more open-ended and progressive era of the 1890s through the early 1930s. Park sets the stage particularly well for showing how a faith that was once more friendly to FDR and the New Deal and to social and economic development causes became one that, under the influence of J. Reuben Clark and Ezra Taft Benson in particular, moved rightwards, eventually becoming an integral albeit uneasy part of the modern political Religious Right. As the younger generations of Church members exhibit more moderate and liberal tendencies, and as the United States whipsaw along Trumpian, centrist Democrat, and progressive tendencies, it will be interesting to see where Church membership and leadership takes the LDS Church in the future.

[Russell Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of our shared church and religious identity by Ben Park (whom I know a little bit, and have argued with occasionally) is excellent. It suffers the flaws that are unavoidable in any one-volume history: stuff has to be sacrificed, details have to be simplified, analysis has to be cut short. While I'm by no means a true Mormon history buff, I know enough about the subject know when Ben had to streamline parts of the story, and by and large I think his choices were judicious and wise. The story he leaves his readers with--the story of a home-grown American religion, one whose internal authoritarianism is always in tension with (sometimes productive balanced by, but sometimes causing significant conflict between) the decentralism and variety inherent to any all-but entirely volunteer organization--is one that presents Mormonism as defined by its relationship to American culture and politics more broadly. Sometimes this is a fairly straightforward matter of Mormonism following American culture's lead (immediately or some years or decades behind); other times it is a matter of antagonism and resistance. American Mormonism's alignment since WWII (and arguably even early, but only becoming strongly pronounced in the 1960s) with conservative "culture war" positions and hence the Republican party is something Ben is particularly good with; his chapters of Mormonism from the 1930s through the 1980s were his best, I think, full of revealing, well-chosen details to illuminate larger structural and doctrinal transformations. I was a little disappointed with the final couple of chapters, which struck me too often as Ben running through a checklist of recent events, but perhaps that's avoidable when talking about the history of one's own lifetime; how can you really know what the significant events are yet? The final sentence of his final chapter, though, is a killer, and one that brings to a pointed conclusion his arguments about Mormonism and change extremely well:

"So long as the [Mormon] church is ensconced within a powerful cultural bloc that enables the stability, privileges, and backing indicative of an assimilated and sanctioned community--indeed, the benefits that the Latter-day Saint tradition has long sought--they will be unlikely the reach the tipping point necessary for change.

[Ryan Tullis]

My audiobook ran out around 1952 and honestly, I’m ok with that. It was getting a little to real

[Marin Sneed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, another school book. i just don't care enough about mormon history, hence the rating. This is very well researched but I think it takes an overly positive view on the church, negating to mention a lot of the violence against women in polygamist households. It kinda glazed over the fact that 13 year old girls were being married off, for a while. I was just not dying to read it.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leann was reading Kingdom of Nauvoo and I started it but didn't have enough background relative to my level of paying attention to the audiobook, so I looked to see if Benjamin E. Park has anything broader, and he's written a whole history of Mormonism from the 1830s to Covid and it was pretty good! There were a lot of times when I questioned whether I needed to read a comprehensive history of Mormonism for seventeen hours, but now I have, and I appreciated the broad scope with a focus on social issues.

[Sarah Dahle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly intellectually dishonest Mormon propaganda with the cadence of approved Sunday School curriculum. Some rather important details are glossed over or omitted entirely. Even the connections to American history and culture (ostensibly the thesis of the book) are obvious or tenuous at best, seemingly deployed as justifications for the worst Mormon impulses. I genuinely laughed out loud at some attempts to retrofit progressive feminist and anti-racist ideals onto church doctrine. It also must be said that the first third is desperately boring for anyone who already knew about Joseph Smith’s obsession with Egyptian mummies and teenage brides.

Park’s tone shifts slightly in the section about the modern church, highlighting leadership’s penchant for choosing a social-issue-as-doctrine hill to die on every few years. Because of his focus on breadth over depth, and not pissing off too many church higher-ups, we never scratch beyond the surface of Brother Park’s superficial version of the story. History is written by the victors I suppose.

[Derek Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up LDS in southern Utah, it never occurred to me that Mormonism might be home to more ideologies than my family’s brand of Rush Limbaugh-style conservatism. To my mind, Mormonism and conservatism were essentially the same thing. I appreciate this book for showing me why I was wrong about that, but also for showing me why I was kind of right. I found American Zion’s focus on culture wars throughout Mormon history valuable and entertaining. The book hammers home the fact that Mormonism is not and has never been only one thing. Every idea in Mormonism, no matter how seemingly universal, is contested at some level by Mormons of all kinds.
Also, if I could time travel I would go back to witness Sterling McMurrin telling Bruce R. McConkie to shut up.

[Harley Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would have been so handy about 3 years ago when I decided to dive into Mormon history. 😆 It’s a great overview of Mormonism, from its conception to the present day. Park doesn’t shy away from thorny topics such as polygamy, gender, race, sexuality, and politics. While comprehensive, the book still leaves room to do additional research if the reader desires. Park remained mostly unbiased, but his political views leaked through towards the end (in my opinion).

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this sweeping history of Mormonism in America (1820-2020) for a local book club. The author spoke at our club meeting and was engaging and interesting. And I appreciated the effort of condensing so much history into 400 pages for a non-academic audience.

I loved the book, even though the conclusion is a little abrupt, almost like he wants to make sure he isn’t TOO hopeful about future social change within the church… 😭 listen, I’m still holding out for gay marriage in my church. I think I’ll see it in my lifetime. The echoes are just so clear when you look at the history of polygamy and racial restrictions.

That being said, Park’s conclusion does bring up an important and sobering point, which is that the LDS church has allies in the religious right on social issues that it never did during those other two big wrestles.

I don’t know. I am still hopeful. Maybe it will happen when my youngest daughter is in college. You heard it here first…

The book relies heavily on secondary sources (the author did much of the research during Covid lockdowns) with one notable exception of pioneer Phebe Pendleton’s detailed and fascinating letters to her children, as well as personal papers from the likes of George Q. Cannon, David O. McKay, and Leonard Arrington.

Park uses plenty of other primary sources too, but is clearly influenced by the important work of Richard and Claudia Bushman, Greg Prince, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich etc. and cites them directly.

Some quotes and notes

“Emmeline Wells’s tenacity later became a hallmark of Mormonism’s unique brand of feminism, one primarily aimed to carve out space for agency within, rather than against, an overwhelmingly patriarchal system.”

Joseph F. Smith’s dramatic reaction when Wilford Woodruff announced the end of polygamy. (The official end, anyway…) The others in the room too… “the room was struck with ‘a sort of ghastly stillness’… one by one they broke into tears.” These people did not expect to reverse course on polygamy. Ever.

The story of Amy Brown Lyman. Ouch. Tragedy all around IMO. Tragedy for her and for the future of the Relief Society.

“Widtsoe published his own theological opus, A Rational Theology, which argued that any modern religion must be ‘in complete harmony with all knowledge.’ These projects reflected a willingness to draw from the era’s intellectual project of professionalization and secular investigation.”

Photo of the Church Welfare Committee in 1940: 15 men and one Amy Brown Lyman

Exploration of David O. McKay’s struggle with the priesthood restriction over decades and the divisions among church leadership on the topic… (definitely recommend DOM and the Rise of Modern Mormonism for more on this)

1968: “America seemed on fire, and Mormon leaders were afraid they might burn with it. Other Latter-day Saints refused to stay neutral. Sterling McMurrin, growing in national prominence, declared that it was time for the church to jettison its ‘crude superstitions about negroes.’” Hugh B. Brown vs Harold B. Lee etc.

Exploration of the rise of cult-like fundamentalists during the 1970s-80s, cites Michael Quinn drawing a correlation to Church leaders’ refusal to confront polygamy head on. “Their phobia at times verged on the comical: at one point, Arrington was assigned to write an essay on Brigham Young’s family but instructed not to mention polygamy—a tall order when the man’s family included fifty-six wives.”

“Mormonism often means embracing competing allegiances.” - I feel this

Basically pins the deeply unpopular and ultimately reversed November 2015 “exclusion policy” on Nelson—interesting exploration

This review is already too long, but I’d love to discuss the book if you’ve read it, and if you haven’t read it you’re welcome to borrow my dog-eared copy! 😆

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immensely readable account of the developments and wild conflicts of American Mormonism. It focuses on how individuals have shaped or fought the trajectory of the Church and how American history and culture interacted with the Church’s development. The most fascinating and page-turning sections covered the mid-period of the Church—from Brigham Young’s death to the mid-1970s—as it uncovered a period full of conflict and changes back and forth that I hadn’t learned much about (re: intellectualism, women’s rights, racism, social reform). As it is a survey of 200 years of history in one book, it is relatively light on details—some issues I find particularly vexing only received a paragraph’s coverage, which made the initial and concluding sections (about Joseph Smith and about the 21st century church) frustrating, as I wanted more information and discussion. Although it’s very readable, it truly is a historian’s book: you won’t find much evaluation or value-judgments here, for better and for worse, and there is quite a bit of defending/explaining both sides of any issue (which is good to understand the history, but can read a little non-committal or vacillating when it seems the value judgment should be clear). If you’re looking for a collection of evidence against the Church, or a valiant defense of it, this isn’t it (and I wish it had more of a point of view, because some things are pretty indefensible). But I enjoyed learning about the cast of characters throughout, both strident influential figures and sadly failed what-could-have-been reformers.

[Brian MaWhinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook.

I, weirdly, have been waiting for a book like this: a secular view of Mormonism’s history, the political actions the movement took, and its embrace/resistance of mainstream American culture . The author does an excellent job of capturing 200+ years of history in a relatively brief outline. I think anyone with interest in the topic will appreciate this.

It is so interesting to read of the figures who had real power in the mainline LDS organization but who didn’t win the age lottery to become President of the church. I didn’t have a good opinion of J. Reuben Clark (the first principal of my high school) going into this, and I think much, much less of him now. What a nightmare.

Other nightmare figures: Hugh Nibley, Boyd K. Packer, Bruce R. McConkie, and, of course, Ezra Taft Benson. A group of sad, sadistic individuals who made my life (and so many others) so much stupider.

Audiobook note: narrator has a great voice, but mispronounced a few key BoM figures and towns in Utah. Pretty funny!

[Stephanie Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! To tackle the complete Mormon history from inception to present day in one 400 page book is a Herculean task, but Park did it masterfully. The book is not meant to be exhaustive. Thank heavens! But he tells a story that feels complete, particularly because he includes the stories of women, the BIPOC community, and the LGBTQ community. These are stories that have been glaringly absent from Mormon history, but are so important. I particularly appreciated how Park shared the Mormon story alongside the American story, as they really can’t be decoupled. To read of Mormonism trying to exist “in the world” while claiming not to be “of the world” was fascinating. Should be mandatory reading for all members of the faith and for all Americans.

[Darya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became interested in Mormon history shortly after meeting Tiffany, the nicest person ever. Even though she’s not “active” anymore, her endless good vibes made me wonder what the LDS church was really about and what sort of values it instills in people. And then I also watched the South Park episode on Mormons and found myself agreeing with the generalization that “damn, why do Mormon people seem like they have such tight knit families who all get along, play board games together, and just seem wholesome?”

Anyways, American Zion was super well written and engaging - the fact that I am a stranger to the LDS church and to religion more broadly should underscore how little I came into this book really knowing. One of the things that made me feel like I could trust Park’s writing was his ability to be critical of Mormonism without being outright disparaging.

I found the beginning 100 pages and last 100 pages to be the most engaging, mostly because in the mid 1800s - mid 1900s, Mormonism seemed to regress in the freedoms it afforded its members. I was surprised to learn how much autonomy LDS women had at the outset of their religion and how often Mormon women were at the forefront of feminist activism (not taking into account the decades of polygamy they had to endure).

Reading American Zion made me realize how intertwined Mormonism is with the history of the U.S. in general, and how much the values that this home-grown religion espouses mirror the traditions we have as a nation.

[Alex Hoeft · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very ... educational, to say the least. This is an intense look at the history of the LDS church, focused on hard facts versus spiritual messages. Difficult to read, as it always is to see LDS failures stated in black and white. Still, absolutely fascinating, and I applaud the research and presentation that clearly went into this.

[Spencer Transier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good overview history of Mormonism. I imagine it'd be very challenging to figure out what details to exclude and what to keep in. But overall, I think it's a good history for both those in and out of the church. The audio narrator did pronounce Moroni as "Mor-oh-nee" and Manti as "Mantee", which I don't know how got past review 😂

[Austin Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure how it could’ve been better unless it was 5x as long. A good reference book for general Mormon history.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, thoughtful, thoroughly enjoyable single-volume history of Mormonism in America. Park traces the major social, political, and theological shifts as Mormonism reacted to, against, and integrated with the larger American culture. Park went far beyond the nearly all-white male priesthood hierarchy to highlight aspects of the larger story through the experiences of women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals. I expect the book will appeal to a broad audience as Park successfully argues how the story of this home-grown American religion reveals much about how the United States has changed over the last two centuries.

[Ursula]

500 pages and I'm still no closer to understanding lisa barlow