It has been twenty-five years since Terryl Givens's debut Latter-day Saint focused monograph: The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy.1 He has since built a reputation on being the most prolific Mormon studies scholar, having written an additional eight books published by Oxford University Press, another from University of North Carolina Press, and a handful of theological titles aimed at Latter-day Saints. Givens's second book, By the Hand of Mormon,2 catapulted his career, but in many ways Viper on the Hearth remains his most influential book. In this forum we offer some thoughts on this groundbreaking work. My own contribution looks at Viper's place in the historiography of the field. I argue that this work is particularly foundational to the trajectory of Mormon studies over the past decade.
Soon after its 1997 publication, Viper was already recognized as field altering....
