Mormon

An excellent sociological treatment of Mormonism is Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (1957, reissued 1964). Jan Shipps, Mormonism (1985), argues that Mormonism is separate from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The church's 19th-century history is treated in Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984); Marvin S. Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (1989), setting the early history of Mormonism in the larger context of contemporary American religious experience; Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (1981), analyzing the cross-influence of the early church and American culture in the formative period 1820 - 1890; and Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 2nd ed. (1992), a topically arranged interpretive history to the turn of the century. Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition (1986), examines the church's changing positions on various issues during the critical period 1890 - 1930. Daniel H. Ludlow (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vol. (1992), is a well-organized reference work with numerous entries on contemporary topics; it is written primarily by Mormons.