In the late nineteenth century the Mormon "culture region" of the American West was considered radical, characterized by sexual immorality, communalism, and anti-Americanism. Today, social conservatism marks the region. How did this shift occur?In this unique study, Ethan R. Yorgason foregrounds the concept of region and traces the conformist-conservative trajectory that arose from intense moral and ideological clashes between Mormons and non-Mormons from 1880 to 1920. Non-Mormons worried that Mormons would establish an un-American society in the West, while Mormons feared for the very existence of their church. An example of the new regional geography, Yorgason's work treats culture as an arena of political struggle.Looking through the lenses of regional geography, history, and cultural studies, Yorgason investigates shifting moral orders relating to gender authority, economic responsibility, and national loyalty. He particularly focuses on Mormon feminism, communitarianism, nationalism, and home life.Transformation of the Mormon Culture Region charts the cultural contradictions of both Mormons and non-Mormons and how they were resolved over time by a progressive narrowing of the range of moral positions on gender (in favor of Victorian gender relations), the economy (in favor of individual economics), and the nation (identifying with national power and might). Mormons and non-Mormons together constructed a regime of effective coexistence, while retaining regional distinctiveness.

In this unique study, Ethan R. Yorgason examines the Mormon "culture region" of the American West, which in the late nineteenth century was characterized by sexual immorality, communalism, and anti-Americanism but is now marked by social conservatism. Foregrounding the concept of region, Yorgason traces the conformist-conservative trajectory that arose from intense moral and ideological clashes between Mormons and non-Mormons from 1880 to 1920. Looking through the lenses of regional geography, history, and cultural studies, Yorgason investigates shifting moral orders relating to gender authority, economic responsibility, and national loyalty, community, and home life. Transformation of the Mormon Culture Region charts how Mormons and non-Mormons resolved their cultural contradictions over time by a progressive narrowing of the range of moral positions on gender (in favor of Victorian gender relations), the economy (in favor of individual economics), and the nation (identifying with national power and might). Mormons and non-Mormons together constructed a regime of effective coexistence while retaining regional distinctiveness.

American Millennials--the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s--have been leaving organized religion in unprecedented numbers. For a long time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an exception: nearly three-quarters of people who grew up Mormon stayed that way into adulthood. In The Next Mormons, Jana Riess demonstrates that things are starting to change. Drawing on a large-scale national study of four generations of current and former Mormons as well as dozens of in-depth personal interviews, Riess explores the religious beliefs and behaviors of young adult Mormons, finding that while their levels of belief remain strong, their institutional loyalties are less certain than their parents' and grandparents'. For a growing number of Millennials, the tensions between the Church's conservative ideals and their generation's commitment to individualism and pluralism prove too high, causing them to leave the faith-often experiencing deep personal anguish in the process. Those who remain within the fold are attempting to carefully balance the Church's strong emphasis on the traditional family with their generation's more inclusive definition that celebrates same-sex couples and women's equality. Mormon families are changing too. More Mormons are remaining single, parents are having fewer children, and more women are working outside the home than a generation ago. The Next Mormons offers a portrait of a generation navigating between traditional religion and a rapidly changing culture.

Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors--cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed.