[MikeWaters]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/bo...pagewanted=all

“These are all signs of a new openness,” said Matthew Bowman, an assistant professor of religion at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and the author of “The Mormon People,” published in January by Random House. The church, he said, “is pushing for detente with historians.”

More non-Mormons are also entering the field, which serves an “important legitimating function,” Mr. Bowman said. Among them is John G. Turner, author of “Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet,” a biography of Joseph Smith’s successor, to be published in September by Harvard University Press.

Mr. Turner, an assistant professor of religious studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who said he “got sucked into the 19th century” while researching Mormons and modern American conservatism, expects the book will displease some people. In particular, he noted its sustained consideration of Young’s polygamous marriages, his complicity in various violent episodes, and other unpalatable subjects that previous biographers — including Leonard J. Arrington, a former church historian who was relieved of his post in 1982 after instituting a more liberal access policy at the archives — had brushed past quickly.

“Just the fact that Brigham Young swore with some frequency will ruffle some feathers,” Mr. Turner predicted.

Yet he said the church had granted him unfettered access to Young’s papers, along with almost every other document he requested. ”I think in general they’re pretty open to working with outside scholars who don’t show up with an obvious ax to grind,” he said.

Mr. Turner also cited the church’s increasing willingness to acknowledge uncomfortable questions about its founders. He pointed to the introduction to the second volume of Smith’s diaries, which noted that some of his 30-odd wives were already legally married to other men — a fact that has generated a cottage industry of research, as well as a panel at the conference in Calgary.