In 2002, then-president of the Western History Association Elliott West introduced the concept of “Greater Reconstruction.” West posited that while histories of nineteenth-century America were dominated by the nation's westward expansion and the Civil War and its aftermath, the field might benefit from treating these simultaneous events as portions of one larger process of American nation-building that prioritized federal power and remade the United States. It has now been more than twenty years since West's initial paper, and the concept of Greater Reconstruction has pushed the field in many interesting directions since then, opening the door to comparative scholarship that has expanded the historiography of Civil War era.
One of the fields that has most benefitted from this concept has been Mormon history, and Reconstruction and Mormon America is a perfect example. Originating from a seminar hosted by the Charles Redd Center at Brigham Young University, this edited collection is...
