Scholars and commentators uniformly agree that Mormonism's influence in American politics has waxed since World War II. This consensus makes the scholarly neglect of the subject all the more puzzling and conspicuous. J. B. Haws's The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception moves us substantially forward in this regard, since it responsibly narrates the Latter-day Saints' political fortunes during the period alongside changing American perceptions of the controversial church and its members. Haws is conscientious and fair-minded in his descriptions of American perceptions (mostly journalistic) and of Latter-day Saints' activities across that span; the book is especially revealing of the ways in which Mormons struggled to manage their image in an ever-changing modern media universe.

The Mormon Image in the American Mind is admittedly neither deeply interpretative nor highly theoretical. Rather, Haws's book stands as an utterly handy baseline narrative — long overdue — that will benefit a wide range of scholars and reading publics. He has done the archival heavy lifting for all subsequent studies and deserves praise for constructing what will surely serve as a scholarly launching pad for years to come. The book, in fact, should be required reading for all journalists in advance of the next Mormon political moment, or for anyone hoping to teach an introductory course on modern American politics and religion. With all that was (sometimes breathlessly) written in the heat of the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, Haws offers a refreshingly workman-like and systematic tabulation of the image-building Mormon moments preceding this most recent one. With a subject so fraught and a history so contested, some readers will find Haws's narration incomplete or simplistic, but it will nevertheless remain an indispensable starting point.

Haws's announced task is to account for the seemingly dramatic transformation of Mormonism's public image between 1968 and 2008 — a decidedly negative slide, as it turns out. (The short version: Mormonism had it good in the 1950s and clung tenaciously to the decade's cultural rhythms long after large segments of the nation broke, often jarringly, in new directions.) He aims to explain what changed and why, in the service of still larger explanations: what do these changes tell us about Mormons, the institutional Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the segments of American society representing both in the public sphere? Had Haws tilted toward that third task, his work would sit alongside several recent works that take up the question of what perceptions of Mormons can tell us about broader issues in American life. Most of his space, however, is spent on what changing representations tell us about the Latter-day Saints and their church. So, while broader contexts certainly inform his account, those wider considerations more often illuminate Mormonism than its political or social or religious contexts. The Mormon Image will still interest scholars of American religion and politics who do not specialize in Mormonism, but less so given Haws's somewhat limited scope and interests. For Haws, the fact that perceptions of Mormons tracked more positively than perceptions of the institutional Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints means that Mormons have public relations work yet to do (17). For scholars of American religion or politics, that curious bifurcation in public perception surely says something else, about changing cultural configurations, changing sensibilities, or changing rhetorical strategies in the broader society.

Also missing from Haws's account is any theory of religion, politics, or public image making. He flirts with an organizing principle — that of a discursive “collage” — but subverts it in various ways (13, 22). He is right to assume complexity, non-linear change, and multi-vocal portraits, as he writes in the opening chapter, but his narrative almost immediately thereafter reduces to a search for a seemingly unitary “image” or “meaning” or a simple “dialogue” between Mormons and non-Mormons, and often at the level of an exchange between Latter-day Saints' public affairs professionals and the national press corps (9, 16). His portraits are typically “layered” with various key constituencies noted and represented, if sometimes insufficiently contextualized or nuanced (41). (What does it mean, for instance, that Mormonism's pre-1978 priesthood race ban was culturally adjudicated, seemingly primarily, via collegiate athletics? Or that Mormonism serves so often as a surrogate for national conversations about religion despite its still relatively small numbers nationally? Or that Mormons steadfastly believe ignorance of their faith is their biggest obstacle to national acceptance—despite their yearning for obscurity every time the national spotlight fixates on them?) This should not diminish the utility of what he has accomplished, however. Future studies will necessarily take up the task of elaborated interpretation and contextualization — and each one will owe a debt to Haws. He has provided subsequent investigators a voluminous documentary head start and an explanatory platform from which to work.

Because of this, Haws's work will be justifiably lauded in several circles. It helps correct a problematic bias toward the 19th century in Mormon studies, and offers scholars of American history and politics a rare exploration of Mormonism's place in modern electoral politics. The Mormon Image in the American Mind is written so clearly, so accessibly, that it will undoubtedly grace many an undergraduate classroom and coffee table alike. Scholars will discover theoretical and interpretative possibilities at every turn and even non-specialists interested in Mormonism and modern American politics will have, finally, a competent telling of a curiously neglected tale.