James B. Allen (historian)

James Brown Allen^[1] (born June 14, 1927)^[2] is an American historian of Mormonism and was an official Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1972 to 1979. While working as Assistant Church Historian, he co-authored The Story of the Latter-day Saints with Glen Leonard. After Ezra Taft Benson dismissed the book as secular new history, other events led to the dissolution of the LDS Church History department in 1982. Allen resigned as Assistant Church Historian in 1979, returning to work at Brigham Young University (BYU) full-time.

He received a bachelor's degree in history from Utah State University (USU), a master's degree from BYU, and a PhD at the University of Southern California (USC). After working as both a seminary teacher and coordinator, he joined the history department at BYU in 1964, where he was department chair from 1981 to 1987. After his retirement in 1992, he was a senior research fellow at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History.