[1][3] After the final article appeared, the church's First Presidency wanted to publish the work in six volumes,[3] but this was dropped due to the cost, despite the willingness of Roberts.

He even considered condensing the material into a single volume after Joseph Fielding Smith's one-volume Essentials in Church History was authorized for publication.

"[8] It was the first to publish some major portions of recent history and to chronicle so wide a period of the Latter Day Saint movement's past in one work.

It referenced copious primary and secondary sources and sought to reject historical myths, "the untruth, the spectacular, the bizarre" that was "based on worthless testimony".

[7] The work has been criticized for manifesting a strong Mormon bias and using Romantic, "rhapsodic prose that sometimes overshoots the mark",[7] but as late as 2001 was nevertheless considered "unsurpassed for its detail and for its comprehensive treatment" as a synthesis of Latter-day Saint history.