No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

Like Ben Franklin, Kit Carson, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, Joseph Smith was incandescent in a uniquely American way. The church he founded is America's most successful home grown religion. A century and a half after Smith's murder by an Illinois mob, the Mormon Church flourishes, with over 12 million members worldwide. You don't have to believe he was divinely inspired - and Fawn Brodie clearly doesn't - to be impressed by his vision, energy, resilience, entrepreneurial skill and improvisational brilliance. Smith was undoubtedly a religious "genius" - William James' term for charismatic founders of new religious movements. This superb biography gives us the life in all its tumult and glory while skillfully refuting the larger than life myths it spawned. As Brodie shows, even as a semi-literate farm boy in upstate New York, Smith was a magnet for the social and theological currents whirling through 1820s America. His Book of Mormon, a mythic tale of warring tribes in the primordial American wilderness, drew upon magic, folklore, superstition, Masonic ritual, the old and new testaments of the Christian bible, racial prejudice against blacks and Indians, and the crude anthropology of his day. He grounded its authenticity in the Angel Moroni, who allegedly led him to the golden plates on which the book was inscribed in ancient hieroglyphics. He, Joseph, claimed only to be the messenger. Brodie has less interest in the mysteries of divine revelation than she does in the mysteries of human charisma. Smith's powerful voice, penetrating gaze and bluff, good-natured personality drew men and women from all walks of life into his orbit. His followers loved the man, according to Brodie, and saw in him the physical embodiment of their church. He was also shrewd enough to custom fit his religion to the character of his time, making Mormonism an ingenious meld of the secular and the spiritual. To a people eager for miracles, he proclaimed several. He gave Mormonism a patina of democracy, creating governing councils and making each member accountable for the overall health of the church. He also played on the willingness of Americans to see evidence of God's favor in the size of their bank balances. In Smith's religion, there was little friction between the good life on earth and the one that comes after. As the Mormons migrated west through Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, Smith updated his theology through periodic revelations from the Almighty. His most controversial revelation had to do with the taking of multiple wives. Interestingly, it wasn't the practice of polygamy that led to Mormon persecution during Smith's lifetime. Polygamy was too explosive for even Smith to sell to his followers, so he kept this revelation a secret outside his inner circle. The persecution the sect endured in Missouri and Illinois had to do with local fears that Smith's religious army would tip the balance of political power. That the prophet and his follower

I will spare the reader of this review another exhaustive summary of the book contents, since the contents are well-documented and reviewed by innumerable other reviewers (the book was initially published in 1945). At any rate, I found the book well-written, the material neatly couched & contextualized into the era it occurred, and a conscientous effort given to both 'official' mormon history and 'unofficial' mormon history. In spite of one's religious beliefs, this book ought to be required reading for both the scholar of mormon history and the devout mormon churchgoer. Ultimately, this book should serve as a springboard for further investigation and research by BOTH earnest mormon scholars and pious mormons alike.

I've consummed a library of books on Mormon studies, and had held off on reading "No Man Knows My History" because I had already read a considerable quantity of biographical material on Joseph Smith. I capitulated at last only because it is among the most well known books on early Mormon history. I am so glad I did. No book could have pulled it all together and made sense of it all as well as Fawn Brodie's book. It is as valuable today as it was when it was first written over half a century ago. None of the objective scholarship of recent years contradicts her conclusions, but rather validates her, page after page after page. Her insight is piercing, her style is almost poetic, and her message is powerful. It is not any easy book for a Mormon to read, as is evidenced by some of the reactionary attacks Brodie receives in some of the reviews already written. The faithful do not want to hear that Joseph Smith was an "evolutionary revolutionary," his doctrine growing with his ego and sense of personal magnificence. But this is no mean swipe at the character of Joseph Smith...if anything, you come away with a sense of awe at the creative genius, the charismatic giant that he must have been. If he brought scorn and violence upon himself and his people, it was a measure of the power he produced and the fear that he struck in lesser men with whom he shared his time and space. Nevertheless, Brodie's exploration of the world of Joseph Smith and the context within which his doctrine evolved is brilliant. She is adept at recognizing the role that projection has played throughout his career, beginning with the Book of Mormon, and continuing on through all of his other writings, including the History of the Church. Ms. Brodie says it best herself in the opening lines of Chapter 19: "A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become." Or as is so often the case, "less what a man was than what he wished he had become." To one who has studied the role of paradigms in shaping the way we interpret our world, Brodie's book makes the most beautiful sense. To one who's faith is at stake, however, her book may serve to threaten the idylic, heroic legend of Joseph Smith that has been carefully nurtured since his murder in 1844. This is among the finest pieces of historical literature I have had the priveledge of reading. Her scholarship and writing and fearless approach to tackle controversial issues with objectivity and sensitivity is matched only by Juanita Brooks in the realm of Mormon studies. This is a book not just to read, but to consume.

The best things about Brodie's work:1)She is accurate. Even though it's been decades since this book has been out, it is still a widely-read text. She is a competent historian, which is a must if you want to learn about things as they reflect reality.2)She is readable. You can actually -enjoy- reading this one! It makes things much easier when a historian can write well, and Brodie does.3)She has a fascinating subject. Joseph Smith is one interesting fellow, as evidenced by the successful church that has sprung up in Utah. For some orthodox Mormons, reading this may even be quite adventuresome, as they learn about Smith from another perspective! I think everyone can read this and be intrigued by a complex person.If I have any complaint, it's that Brodie tries to psychoanalyze Smith too much. Obviously every biography is going to involve some speculation - unless you can actually interview the person yourself - but I thought she went too far at times in assuming she knew "why" Smith did certain things.Overall I highly recommend the book and I think it is still after all these years the best biography on Smith you can get your hands on.

A well-researched and documented book. Ms. Brodie did much of her research in the Mormon Church's archives and library, and because David O McKay (a former president of the Mormon Church) was her uncle, she had access to documents that other researchers did not. This biography portrays Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) as a fraud, a con-man, and a seducer of women. For instance, Brodie documents how Joseph Smith defrauded his church members in the Kirtland Anti-Banking scandal, swindling them of their money and their land. Brodie also documents how he sent various men on church missions and seduced their wives while they were away. These are just two examples of frauds Smith perpetrated. The book is controversial because many Mormons feel that the book is an attack on their church founder, and they claim that it is bad history. Ms. Brodie attempted to enter the mind of her subject and explain what motivated Joseph Smith, in this regard she crosses the line between history and psycho-analysis. An excellent read.