“this is the global mormonism volume we've been waiting for,” my colleague David Howlett recently said of the Palgrave Handbook of Global Mormonism.
I have to say I agree. At 868 pages, this volume is more comprehensive than any that have come before, with thirty-one chapters written by forty-two authors on three restoration traditions, discussing over forty countries and even more ethnic and cultural groupings. The editors have brought together not only scholars from the fields already well represented within Mormon studies (history, religious studies, sociology, anthropology, studies of gender, race, and culture) but also scholars with provocative perspectives from geography, demography, and corporate research.1 There is a pleasing mix of new and familiar names.
Reviewing a book such as this one could easily consume the allotted space with summaries of each individual contribution. Instead of comprehensive summaries, I will first describe the book's content and identify some...