Hang around scholars of Mormonism long enough and you are bound to hear about Sir Richard Burton. Burton, the 19th-century British adventurer, is famous for having penetrated Mecca, disguised as a Muslim pilgrim. Mormonism, however, was another matter: “There is in Mormondom, as in all other exclusive faiths, an inner life into which I cannot flatter myself or deceive the reader with the idea of my having penetrated,” he wrote in City of the Saints (1861; reprint, New York, 1963; quoted in Givens, 281). In People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture, Givens begins to explain what Sir Richard Burton could not: the “intellectual and cultural heritage” of Mormonism (xiii).

Givens recognizes the capaciousness of those words — particularly culture — and wisely moved to limit the scope of his study by imposing definitional limits. By “culture,” he means “a general habit of mind, the intellectual development of a society, and its general body of arts” (xiii). That definition, of course, is so broad as to suggest a multi-volume work. Givens therefore limits further, declaring that he will focus on “the seminal ideas that constitute a Mormon ‘habit of mind,’ their development and elaboration over time, and their manifestations and permutations across a spectrum of artistic media” (xiii). Drawing on Frederick Barnard's observation that culture may “refer to a field of tension” (xiv, quoting Barnard, “Culture and Civilization in Modern Times,” in Philip P. Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas, New York, 1973, 1:618), Givens identifies four “especially rich and fertile tensions” (xiv), the paradoxes of his title. These tensions — authoritarianism versus individualism; intellectual certitude versus skepticism and searching; the persistent collapse of the distance between sacred and profane; and exile versus integration, or more broadly, particular versus universal — form the organizing principles of Givens' analysis.

The book is divided into three parts. Part one, “Foundations and Paradoxes in Mormon Cultural Origins,” explores the origins and contours of each of the four paradoxes that Givens has chosen. Part two, “The Varieties of Mormon Cultural Expression: Beginnings (1830–1890): The Dancing Puritans,” examines early Mormon culture in six chapters, each focused on a different manifestation of that “field of tension.” Givens explores Mormon learning, architecture and city planning, music and dance, theater, literature, and visual arts. Finally, Part three, “The Varieties of Mormon Cultural Expression: A Movable Zion (1890-Present): Pioneer Nostalgia and Beyond the American Religion,” examines the same fields of culture, with the exception of city planning and the addition of film.

One of the most difficult decisions for Givens must have been determining what “counts” as Mormon culture, particularly as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) came into greater and more sustained contact with the rest of the world after 1890. Givens does not articulate his selection criteria, and the reader is hard-pressed to intuit them. Certainly, work by members of the LDS Church should count; but what about works produced by former members of the Church? What about people who were never members, but whose work was enthusiastically adopted by members of the LDS Church? At one point or another, Givens includes analysis of the work of all these categories of people. Yet he also leaves out others who would fit one of these categories. Most notable among these omissions, perhaps, is C.S. Lewis, whose work Mormons cite regularly. (Givens himself quotes Lewis at several points in People of Paradox.) An explanation of why this high-church Anglican's work resonates so deeply with Latter-day Saints might have gone a long way toward explaining Mormon culture, but that will have to wait for another book.

Givens' understanding of what constitutes Mormon culture is idiosyncratic in other ways as well. For example, he discusses the work of several 20th-century visual artists, but omits Del Parsons, the artist who painted the iconic image of Jesus in a red robe that is ubiquitous in LDS homes and church buildings. Givens' chapter on music and dance in the 20th and 21st century seems similarly incomplete, containing only three paragraphs on dance. At an historical moment when Mormons are succeeding in disproportionate numbers on popular television dance shows like Dancing with the Stars, Givens' treatment only whets the appetite. While these omissions might suggest a preference for “high culture,” Givens also discusses the artifacts of LDS mass culture with relish: the science fiction of Orson Scott Card and the genre of the Mormon musical, for example, receive ample attention.

In People of Paradox, Givens has accomplished a great deal in the analysis of Mormon culture simply by opening the topic up for discussion. The paradoxes he selects are powerful tools for analyzing the ways in which Mormon cultural production has expressed theological concepts aesthetically as well as the ways in which it has selectively borrowed from (and positioned itself against) mainstream American culture. Givens' book will be of obvious interest to students of Mormon history and culture, as well as to those interested in the relationship between Mormonism and the United States.