PROVO — Nestor Esteban Curbelo Armando, author of a book on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Argentina and his native Uruguay, has received the Leonard J. Arrington Award, the most prestigious honor given by the Mormon History Association.
The presentation was made Friday night during the association’s 50th annual conference, convening this year in Provo.
The author began his study of Mormon history while serving as an Institute of Religion director for the church in Buenos Aires. For many years, he has been a correspondent for the LDS Church News section of the Deseret News and has produced a video and documentaries on the history of the church in Latin America.
Russell W. Stevenson received the association’s Best Book Award for his book “For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013.”
Here is a list of other awards presented by the association:
Best First Book Award: David J. Howlett for “Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space."
Best Biography: Julie Debra Neuffer for “Helen Andelin and the Fascinating Womanhood Movement."
Best Documentary Editing/Bibliography: Terryl L. Givens and Reid L. Neilson for “The Columbia Sourcebook of Mormons in the United States.”
Best Family/Community History: Donna Toland Smart for “Finding Rachel and Myra among Prairie Pioneers.”
Best Personal History/Memoir: Craig Harline for “Way Below the Angels.”
Best Inspirational Book: Marjorie Newton for “Mormon and Maori.”
Best Article: Andrea G. Radke-Moss for “ ‘I hid [the Prophet] in a corn patch’: Mormon Women as Healers, Concealers, and Protectors in the 1838 Mormon-Missouri War.”
Article Award of Excellence: David Walker for “Transporting Mormonism: Railroads and Religious Sensation in the American West.”
Article Award of Excellence: Christopher James Blythe for “‘Would to God, Brethren, I Could Tell You Who I am!’ Nineteenth-Century Mormonisms and the Apotheosis of Joseph Smith.”
Best International Article: Dylan Beatty for Mamona and the Mau: Latter-day Saints Amidst Resistance in Colonial Samoa.”
Best International Article: Scott C. Esplin, E Vance Randall, Casey P. Griffiths and Barbara E. Morgan for “Isolationism, Exceptionalism and Acculturation: The Internationalization of Mormon Education in Mexico.”
Best Article on Mormon Women’s History: Rachel Cope for “Composing Radical Lives: Women as Autonomous Religious Seekers and Nineteenth-Century Memoirs.”
Best Thesis Award: Joseph Stuart for “Holy Races: Race in the Formation of Mormonism and the Nation of Islam.”
Best Dissertation Award: Max Perry Mueller for “Black, White, and Red: Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 1830-1880.”
Best Graduate Paper: Charlotte Hansen Terry for “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Mormon Women’s Diaries and Domesticity in the Early Twentieth Century.”
Special Citation: Steven Coffey.