Ronald W. Walker

For similarly named people, see Ronald Walker (disambiguation).

Ronald Warren Walker (born 1939) is a historian of the Latter Day Saint movement who was formerly a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) and president of the Mormon History Association.

Biography

Walker was born in Missoula, Montana and raised in Iowa and the San Joaquin Valley of California. He graduated from high school in Bakersfield, California.

Walker attended BYU, where he received a Bachelor of Science in 1961 and a Master of Arts in 1965. He received a Master of Science from Stanford University in 1968, and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1977, writing his dissertation on the Godbeites. During his graduate studies Walker had worked in the church's Institute of Religion in southern California and at the University of Utah. He joined the LDS Church Historical Department under Leonard Arrington in 1976. In 1980 he was transferred to BYU to become a professor of history and inaugural member of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. He would later serve as a senior research fellow at the Smith Institute and acting director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. He was president of the Mormon History Association during 1991–1992.

Walker and his wife, Nelani Midgley Walker, are the parents of seven children. Walker is a Latter-day Saint and among other callings in the Church has served as a bishop.

Writings

Walker was widely published in the field of Mormon history and noted historian Leonard Arrington called him "one of the church's most sophisticated writers."

The following is a partial list of Walker's writings and publications:

• Walker, Ronald W. (1977), The Godbeite Protest in the Making of Modern Utah, Salt Lake City: Department of History, University of Utah {{citation}}: |format= requires |url= (help).
• —— (1998), Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02378-1 {{citation}}: |author= has numeric name (help). (Republished by the University of Utah in 2009)
• Allen, James B.; Walker, Ronald W.; Whittaker, David J. (2000), Studies in Mormon History, 1830-1997: An Indexed Bibliography, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02565-2.
• Walker, Ronald W.; Whittaker, David J.; Allen, James B. (2001), Mormon History, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02619-5.
• —— (2004), Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant as Businessman, Missionary and Apostle, vol. 43, BYU Studies, ISBN 0-8425-2550-5 {{citation}}: |last= has numeric name (help).
• Neilson, Reid L.; Walker, Ronald W., eds. (2006), Reflections of a Mormon Historian: Leonard J. Arrington on the New Mormon History, Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, ISBN 0870623486.
• Walker, Ronald W.; Turley, Richard E., Jr.; Leonard, Glen M. (2008), Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-516034-5{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link).
• Turley, Richard E., Jr.; Walker, Ronald W., eds. (2009), Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections, Provo, UT: BYU Press, ISBN 978-0-8425-2723-1{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link).

Sources

• Short bio of Walker
• Google Books list of works by Walker
• Bio connected with Walker's chapter in Supporting Saints (Donald Q. Cannon and David J. Whittaker, ed., Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1985)

External links

• Ronald W. Walker at the MLCA Database
• Template:Worldcat id