In the early and mid-twentieth century, Joseph Fielding Smith's (1876-1972) life as a public historian and theologian shaped the religious worldview of generations of Latter-day Saints. Matthew Bowman examines Smith's ideas and his place in American religious history.

Smith achieved position and influence at a young age, while his theories about the age of the earth and the falseness of evolutionary theory brought fame and controversy. As Bowman shows, Smith's strong identity as a Saint influenced how he blended Protestant fundamentalist thought into his distinctly LDS theological views.

Bowman also goes beyond Smith's well-known conservatism to reveal him as an important thinker engaged with the major religious questions of his time.