"I Dig a City Called Salt Lake"

"As he admits, the question of whether Latter-day Saints can be considered Christians does not yield a universally acceptable or historically obvious answer, no matter what Mormons may claim. You might say that the answer depends on who is asking the question, and when. Throughout their church's relatively brief history, Mormons have been torn between a desire to separate themselves from other Christians and other Americans and a desire to assimilate and be accepted. The 'dynamic tension' that Givens detects between these poles runs like an electrical current through all the other paradoxes and contradictions that he believes define Mormon culture."

In Salon, Andrew O'Hehir reviews Terryl L. Givens's People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture.

In The Journal of American History, Jan Ships reviews Richard L. Bushman's Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, and Bushman responds.