Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History

Renowned historian Richard Lyman Bushman presents a vibrant history of the objects that gave birth to a new religion.

According to Joseph Smith, in September of 1823 an angel appeared to him and directed him to a hill near his home. Buried there Smith found a box containing a stack of thin metal sheets, gold in color, about six inches wide, eight inches long, piled six or so inches high, bound together by large rings, and covered with what appeared to be ancient engravings. Exactly four year...