Joseph Smith

Truly, I sometimes wonder what book my colleague reviewers here read. This is one of those cases. This is a wonderfully concise biography of a vital personage in American religion. Author Remini, a distinguished historian, especially regarding Jacksonian era America, very even handedly presents succinctly the life of a brilliant, if flawed (perhaps brilliantly flawed) human being. Most fascinatingly, the connections he makes between the rise of Mormonism and the socio-religio-political climate of the day are vibrantly fresh and compelling. The LDS folks have lots of lengthy and wildly variant documents of their early history; this brief biography tidily abridges, without fatally degrading.

I just want to leave this short and sweet (just like the book)... The book was great. I couldn't put it down. I really appreciated the author's distant approach in laying forth the facts. He himself is not mormon, but leaves the reader to interpret the details presented as so desired... Now go read it! :)

Robert Remini is the best historian of the Jacksonian era. His previous efforts have focused on the political leaders, three volumes on Jackson himself, one on Clay, and one on Webster, another on Van Buren. He has also examined whole hosts of smaller issues related to this period. He is in full command of the subject matter related to this period.Whoever had the idea of assigning Remini to write on Joseph Smith should get an award. For he is a novel and interesting choice. Usually books on religious leaders are written by people steeped in theory and dogma. It is far better to have Smith's biography written by one who can place his ideas within their proper context. Remini knows and understands the particulars of the "Second Great Awakening" and the various religious and intellectual trends that marked the period of roughly 1812-1840. In doing so, he is able to explain much. Remini shyes away from the question of whether or not Smith was was a prophet or con man and leaves the reader to make up his own mind about this, in doing so he steers a path between those who write books of praise about the Morman church's founders and those who criticize it. This book is an outstanding addition to the Penguin Brief Lives series and yet another triumph for the foremost historian of age of Jackson.

Remini's biography is, by requirement, quite short, and cannot treat the nuances and complexities of every issue raised by the Joseph Smith story. Still, within its compass, it's a very good piece of work, a fine introduction to the life and legacy of the founder of Mormonism by a first-rate non-Mormon biographer.Incidentally, contrary to the assertion of one of the reviewers below, Smith's varying accounts of the First Version, while they differ on the matter of the number of beings seen in the vision, do not, strictly speaking, contradict each other, any more than it would be inconsistent for someone to say to one person that he saw Bob and Julie at a party while saying to another that he saw Bob. Both statements could easily be true. If Joseph had ever said that he saw ONLY the Son, and then, later, that he saw the Father and the Son, that would have been a contradiction. But he never said anything of the kind. Elementary logic is really helpful in matters like this.