Reconsidering No Man Knows My History

It's unfortunate that readers of both this book and the book it deals with "No Man Knows My History", get so sensitive and threatened if they perceive their own personal beliefs being attacked. This book is a collection of 7 essays by Brodie's contemporaries and fellow historians, who give OBJECTIVE opinions on her groundbreaking work on the life of Joseph Smith. Unlike most reviewers below, each essayist is able to put aside their personal beliefs and critique Brodie's work from a purely scholarly viewpoint, and so you will not find either apologetics or polemics within this collection. Each essay's author is able to comment on both the good and the bad of "No Man Knows My History" and is able to do so without standing on a soap box. My favourite essay was the final one by Roger D. Launius "From Old to New Mormon History: Fawn Brodie and the Legacy of Scholarly Analysis of Mormonism", who acknowledges the effect her work has had on Mormon historians but also highlights the effort spent on addressing the issues she raised has diverted attention away from potentially more beneficial works. Todd Compton's essay on Brodie's coverage of Smith's plural wives acknowledges the pioneering and exhaustive work Brodie performed in her appendix on the subject, but also highlights the flaws in her assumptions, to the extent of convincingly refuting a few of her claims of Smith's plural marriages - including evidence that Oliver Buell could not possibly be Smith's offspring. In conclusion, this collection pales in comparison to the work it comments on but it does show an example of objective scholarship when reviewing works as controversial as Brodie's "No Man Knows My History".

I'm writing this, in part, to offset the asinine one-star assigned by a Utah reviewer and also because I believe "Reconsidering..." is essential to appreciating and evaluating Brodie's book. Each essayist was excellent. There wasn't one section that was irrelevant, including the one about style that another reviewer criticized. Taken together, the essays provide a superb insight into the strengths and weaknesses of "No Man Knows..." as well as that of its author, Fawn Brodie. Without this "preface", one who is unfamiliar with Joseph Smith and Mormonism is likely to be misled by Brodie's prejudice and misinformation. I am no longer a committed Latter-day Saint, so I'm not blindly defending the faith. It's just that as courageous and innovative as Brodie's book was, it was hardly an even-handed scholarly treatment. Having read dozens of scholarly works on the subject, including many by non-Mormons, her animus against Mormonism and its founder is evident. Still, she deserves credit for her dogged research and masterful presentation. It is a flawed masterpiece. Although "Reconsidering..." is not the literary tour de force that the book it examines is, it is certainly more objective and just as erudite.

One Hundred (and one) years after the Mormon prophet's demise in Nauvoo, Fawn Mckay Brodie had completed a biography of him. This work on Joseph Smith's life has within certain communities has been received both with high priase and acclaim as well as severe condemnation. This controversy alone has raised the status of the book amongst historical, socialogical and literary reviewers. Newell G. Bringhurst brings this dynamic alive with a selection of essays about Brodie's offering from a variety of critical and careful perspectives.The focus of this collection is not to examine the actual biography of Smith and its validity, rather it is about Brodie's work. Many of the relevant issues discussed about a task as she achieved are brought to light by the various essays: how meticulous was her research, the literary style are prose of the work, the reliability of her sources, the consistency of the work, the conclusions her work leads to, etc. All these were carefully examined by a number of the essayists. Furthermore, the character of Brodie was considered, i.e. her sense of purpose and accomplishment, perhaps her sense of duty. There are amongst each of the essays remarkable insights into both the work on a scholarly level and into the woman who created it all.The synopsis of the collection as a whole is widespread praise for Brodie's ground-breaking effort. She has treaded into a life with such incredible care and insight which few have since unsuccessfully attempted to match. The biographer is given the credit she desrved with "No Man Knows My History" and later solidly earned with her other works.I recommend this strongly for those who have an interest in examining historical research and particularly those interested in Brodie's research. For those interested in Mormon research, I suggest both this "Reconsidering..." and Brodie's biography be read concurrently or at least in succession.

Newell Bringhurst, a highly-qualified Mormon historian who is not active in the church, has assembled an interesting and balanced set of essays about Fawn Brodie's extremely important book on Joseph Smith. Devout Mormons reject her work out-of-hand (much of the time, I fear, without reading it--the Church has told them not to). But real historians are not fearful of research and of facts. This is the basis for this collection. The best essay is Bringhurst's own, which gives a clear picture of the difficulties Fawn B. encountered when researching the book, as well as an analysis of the validity of her methods. In spite of heavy indoctrination by family and community, Fawn B. managed to develop a clarity of sight and and desire to penetrate myths and propaganda that made all of her works important and unignorable by future writers on their subjects. The "pro-Mormon" essays in this collection, interestingly, tend to be the most bombastic and evasive--much like the master of apologist irrelevance, Hugh Nibley. Like a good historian, Bringhurst provides the evidence and leaves it to the reader's intelligence to evaluate it for himself--the exact opposite of what Mormon authorities do.

One must keep in mind, that Fawn Brodie wrote her biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, in 1945. This book is a classic. She deserves praise for her work, even if Mormons don't like hearing about it. Mormon apologists like arguing about minor points about her book, trying to "explain it away, under the carpet." But the vast majority and the most important points of her groundbreaking work have never been seriously refuted. Newell Bringhurst's book is a masterpiece. He has compiled this impressive volume, Brodie's biography of Joseph Smith. It qualifies as essential for the serious reader wanting to know all facts and then making a qualified judgement. Bringhurst has brought together a collection of essays by various writers, Mormons and Non-Mormons, weighing both sides of the evidence.