Over the ensuing centuries, Bowman demonstrates, that vision has evolved - and with it the esteem in which Mormons have been held in the eyes of their countrymen. Mormonism started as a radical movement, with a profoundly transformative vision of American society that was rooted in a form of Christian socialism.

He recounts the church’s origin and development, explains how Mormonism came to be one of the fastest-growing religions in the world by the turn of 21st century, and ably sets the scene for a 2012 presidential election that has the potential to mark a major turning point in the way this “all-American” faith is perceived by the wider American public - and internationally. In The Mormon People, religious historian Matthew Bowman peels back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine. One of the nascent faith’s early initiates was a 23-year-old Ohio farmer named Parley Pratt, the distant grandfather of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In 1830, a young seer and sometime treasure hunter named Joseph Smith began organizing adherents into a new religious community that would come to be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and known informally as the Mormons). With Mormonism on the verge of an unprecedented cultural and political breakthrough, an eminent scholar of American evangelicalism explores the history and reflects on the future of this native-born American faith and its connection to the life of the nation.

The mormon people matthew bowman