Benjamin E. Park

Benjamin E. Park, who teaches religious history at Sam Houston State University, is the co-editor of Mormon Studies Review, editor of A Companion to American Religious History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021), and author of Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (W. W. Norton/Liveright, 2020), which will be released in paperback in August 2021. He is currently working on a general survey of the Latter-day Saint tradition in America, which will be published by W. W. Norton/Liveright. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the annual conference for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. The author thanks David W. Grua for help in understanding the Danite constitution document.

BYU Studies Publications

America 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, and the Presidential Election That Transformed the Nation
Images of the New Jerusalem: Latter Day Saint Faction Interpretations of Independence, Missouri
The Danite Constitution and Theories of Democratic Justice in Frontier America