David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism

Why it’s on the list: Prince and Wright had access to McKay’s own diaries and office journals, and use them to show a church president deciding — on the priesthood restriction, on building programs, on politics, on how a mid-century American institution went global. The standard scholarly biography.

Where I heard about it

• My own note — typed in from memory as “David O McKay book by Gregory prince” rather than saved from a link.
• @Parley_Preaches — quoted it at length on X in September 2026, an anecdote about President McKay and a Coca-Cola–branded cup at a theatre intermission: the post.

Connections

• David O. McKay — the subject.
• Mormonism · Religious Intellectualism — the field and the portfolio idea.
• Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History — the read-library book on the same scholarly tradition.
• Elder Statesman — also saved in this note; Quinn’s J. Reuben Clark biography covers the same decades from the next chair over.