William P. MacKinnon, an American independent historian. A management consultant, MacKinnon is a historian of the American West, Mormon history, and Utah history^[5] who was described by Richard E. Turley in 2018 as "the acknowledged expert"^[6] and by Thomas G. Alexander in 2019 as "the most knowledgable authority"^[7] on what was known in its time as the American War of the Mormons' Succession (or more recently "the Utah War"), a topic of which MacKinnon began his study as a Yale sophomore history major in 1958.^[8] In 2018, MacKinnon presented the 35th Juanita Brooks Lecture at Dixie State University: "Across the Desert in 1858: Thomas L. Kane’s Mediating Mission and the Mormon Women who Made it Possible."^[9] As of 2010^[update], MacKinnon lived in Santa Barbara with his wife, Patricia.^[10]

Publications

MacKinnon has published over thirty journal articles on the history of the American West. In 2010, he contributed an article to Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia.

• (2009) "Full of Courage: Thomas L. Kane, the Utah War, and BYU's Kane Collection as Lodestone', BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 48 : Iss. 4, Article 6.
• William P. MacKinnon (2016). William P. MacKinnon (ed.). At Sword's Point, Part 2: A Documentary History of the Utah War, 1858–1859. Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier. Vol. 11. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806156743.
• William P. MacKinnon (2016). William P. MacKinnon (ed.). At Sword's Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858. Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier. Vol. 10. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806157252.