An excellent sociological treatment of Mormonism is Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (1957, reissued 1964). Jan Shipps, Mormonism (1985), argues that Mormonism is separate from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The church's 19th-century history is treated in Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984); Marvin S. Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (1989), setting the early history of Mormonism in the larger context of contemporary American religious experience; Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (1981), analyzing the cross-influence of the early church and American culture in the formative period 1820–1890; and Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 2nd ed. (1992), a topically arranged interpretive history to the turn of the century. Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition (1986), examines the church's changing positions on various issues during the critical period 1890–1930. Daniel H. Ludlow (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vol. (1992), is a well-organized reference work with numerous entries on contemporary topics; it is written primarily by Mormons.
