"The past few decades have witnessed an increasing reaction of the Mormons against their own successful assimilation", Armand Mauss writes in The Angel and the Beehive, "as though trying to recover some of the cultural tension and special identity associated with their earlier 'sect-like' history". This retrenchment among Mormons is the main theme of Mauss's book, which analyzes the last forty years of Mormon history from a sociological perspective. At the official ecclesiastical level, Mauss finds, the retrenchment can be seen in the greatly increased centralization of bureaucratic control and in renewed emphases on obedience to modern prophets, on genealogy and vicarious temple work, and on traditional family life; retrenchment is also apparent in extensive formal religious indoctrination by full-time professionals and in an increased sophistication and intensity of proselytizing. At what he refers to as "the folk or grassroots level", Mauss finds that Mormons have generally been compliant with the retrenchment effort and are today at least as "religious" on most measures as they were in the 1960s. A sizable segment of the Mormon membership, Mauss asserts, has gone beyond "Mormon" retrenchment to express itself in a growing resort to Protestant fundamentalism, both in scriptural understanding and in intellectual style. The author calls on a wide array of sources in sociology and history to show that Mormons, who by mid-century had come a long way from their position as disreputable "outsiders" in a society dominated by the mainline religions, seem now to be adopting more conservative ways and seeking a return to a more sectarian posture.

All Abraham’s Children is Armand L. Mauss’s long-awaited magnum opus on the evolution of traditional Mormon beliefs and practices concerning minorities. He examines how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have defined themselves and others in terms of racial lineages. Mauss describes a complex process of the broadening of these self-defined lineages during the last part of the twentieth century as the modern Mormon church continued its world-wide expansion through massive missionary work. Mauss contends that Mormon constructions of racial identity have not necessarily affected actual behavior negatively and that in some cases Mormons have shown greater tolerance than other groups in the American mainstream. Employing a broad intellectual historical analysis to identify shifts in LDS behavior over time, All Abraham’s Children is an important commentary on current models of Mormon historiography.

This exploration offers readers fresh and broad ranges of ways to evaluate their own religious traditions when dealing with issues related to the future of the family.

"Swedin portrays the rise of professional organizations such as the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, as well as the importance of Allen E. Bergin, first director of the BYU Institute for Studies in Values and Human Behavior. Bergin and others paved the way for the LDS adoption of professional psychotherapy as an essential element of their "cure of souls."" "Important chapters take up LDS psychopathology, feminist dissent, LDS philosophies of sexuality, and the rejection of mainstream psychotherapy's selfist psychology on the basis of theological doctrines of family salvation, externalism, and the "natural man.""

The year 2003 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the lifting of the ban excluding black members from the priesthood of the Mormon church. The articles collected in Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith's Black and Mormon look at the mechanisms used to keep blacks from full participation, the motives behind the ban, and the kind of changes that have--and have not--taken place within the church since the revelation responsible for its end. This challenging collection is required reading for anyone concerned with the history of racism, discrimination, and the Latter-day Saints.

In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe. Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States. Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.