A fairly biased view of the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Although Ms. Brodie does a good job researching basic facts, she has obvious opinions in opposition to the Church doctrine.

I enjoyed reading the book, however inflammatory it is. I would not recommend it to someone seeking honest information about Joseph Smith. ( )

Fascinating, well-documented biography about a subject very rarely covered by non-Mormons. ( )

High on speculation, low on verifiable facts.

I first became aware of this book when I read [a:Hugh Nibley|152474|Hugh Nibley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1348476839p2/152474.jpg]'s rebuttal: "No Ma'am That's Not History". The first sentence in Nibley's Preface includes the words (I) "was struck by the brazen inconsistencies that swarm in its pages. At that time he had no means of knowing that inconsistency was the least of the author's vices, and assumed with other reviewers that when she cited a work in her footnotes, she had actually read it, that when she quoted she was quoting correctly, and that she was familiar with the works in her bibliography. Only when other investigations led the reviewer to the same sources in ensuing years did the extent of Mrs. Brodie's irresponsibility become apparent. ... more than a decade of research abetted by correspondence with Mrs. Brodie's defenders has failed to discredit a single observation made in our 1946 review, which is printed here with only a few typographical corrections. "

[a:Hugh Nibley|152474|Hugh Nibley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1348476839p2/152474.jpg]'s paper introduced above is available online. (http://maxwellinstitute.com/publications/transcripts/?id=47). It is reprinted as the first section in the book: [b:Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young|320375|Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 11)|Hugh Nibley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418842630s/320375.jpg|311128].

The extent of erroneous reports about the church is amazing. I remember hearing of a newspaper article saying that the church was so strict that they don't even allow the drinking of milk.

Christ said: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles" (Matthew 7:16) So, what fruits do we see from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Does the church teach high standards of dress, speech, and morality? (See Chapter 27 of [b:Marvelous Work and a Wonder|596290|A Marvelous Work and a Wonder|LeGrand Richards|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418843656s/596290.jpg|1268158] for a description of the fruits from the restored church.)

Update:
Joseph Smith's DNA revealed: New Clues to the Prophet's Genes by Dr. Ugo Perego
Youtube video: https://youtu.be/sYwgMPFYnLQ
He found descendants of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith to get samples of their DNA. Then people ask questions about alleged children of Joseph Smith through other wives based on the Brodie book. He found descendants of those alleged posterity, then compared their DNA with that of the Joseph Smith descendants. So that people can annotate their copies, Dr. Perego gives page number of the Brodie book.
( )

A good book about a real scoundrel (in my opinion) by a very good author. Have also read her Books about Jefferson and Burton and all very good. Good research and solid deductive reasoning seem to result in her method. Smith and his 'religion' are laughable, and I believe Brodie felt that way as well....if not, I misinterpreted her 300 denunciations....Finished 06.09.19. ( )

Uncharacteristic intuition (and even sympathy!) regarding religious experience from an academic and encyclopedic knowledge of primary sources combine perfectly to reconstruct the unbridled, fanatic ecstasy in which Joseph Smith spent his entire life. And not just Smith, but of frontier life of the second great awakening - when America was a land of men digging for cursed treasures, who saw angels around every corner, who felt so close to unraveling all the mysteries of existence through divine artifacts and prayer.

The 18th-century prophetic wave which began with Swedenborg and crested with Blake saw in Smith its culmination, for he was the last prophet to proclaim a love for the American project not just by words or divine decrees but in his very theology. At the same time William Miller eschewed the experiential in his sterile eschatological exegesis and Emerson shed all concept of received knowledge as insufficient, only Smith among the intellectual innovators of his day could perceive the promises of scripture realized in the world around him.

Brodie was the first to apply critical scrutiny not just to Mormon apologia, but also to a tradition nearly as old: anti-Mormon polemic (for Mormonism Unvailed was published only 1 year after Joseph Smith's first crude attempt at church history in the Book of Commandments). She finds that the traditional image among historians (when they think of him at all) of Joe Smith the simple huckster is as untenable as the guileless, pious teenager promulgated by Salt Lake City.

She shows him at his worst: a dilettante who rushes headfirst into matters far beyond his comprehension, occasionally destroying his followers' welfare (when he tried his hand at banking), their marriages, or even their lives (when he fancied himself a general). She shows an intemperate man who was unable or unwilling to distinguish between his appetites and the will of God, to the degree that he ensconced "a burning in your bosom" as the final test of divine authority in scripture. But she shows him at his most heroic, too: an unschooled youth who needed a miracle to reconcile his unchurched father and his relapsed Presbyterian mother after his brother Alvin's death. ( )