Fawn Brodie "No Man Knows My History" - How Accurate?

[_moksha]

Wasn't any non-legend history a bit of a thunderbolt back then, which forced on Fawn Brodie the role as a lightning rod to help future historians escape both sizzling criticism and condemnation from the Church - at least up until Dr. Quinn drew their attention.

[_Obiwan]

This will get you started....
http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... pts/?id=47

by the way.... Contrary to others statements above, this is a "brief" critical "Review".
In other words, it is not writing a book to contend against every wrong statement within a book. It's just picking some highlights that stood out to that particular author.

More can be said on some of the issues in the book from other LDS scholarship written.
But, that will take you time and objective study, which I doubt you're willing to do.

[_Buffalo]

This will get you started....
http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... pts/?id=47

by the way.... Contrary to others statements above, this is a "brief" critical "Review".
In other words, it is not writing a book to contend against every wrong statement within a book. It's just picking some highlights that stood out to that particular author.

More can be said on some of the issues in the book from other LDS scholarship written.
But, that will take you time and objective study, which I doubt you're willing to do.

Can you provide a review from a credible source?

[_NibleyGhost]

Can you provide a review from a credible source?

Pardon me, but you do not view a publication backed by top-ranked academic institution as credible?

BYU is, according to US News and World Report, ranked #71 in the country overall.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Brodie's book was brilliant and absolutely cutting-edge, in its day. I recall reading Francis Gibbons's biography of Smith, which roundly denounced Brodie's book and then proceeded to cite it copiously and authoritatively in the footnotes. Also, Brodie's analysis has been decisively vindicated on some points for which her critics took her to task, such as her reliance on the Hurlbut affidavits for information about Joseph's youth. Bushman's biography, for example, has far more in common with Brodie's treatment of the affidavits than with Arrington and Bitton's rather embarrassing apologetic in The Mormon Experience. NMKMH is certainly outdated today, and it's clear that in some respects she was mistaken and engaged in unwarranted speculation and psychologizing. But the snippet Ray quotes from Marvin Hill is seriously and obviously misguided, in my opinion. Brodie didn't deny that Joseph Smith was a true believer in his own prophethood. She merely proposed that he was also a liar and a fraud-- a pious fraud, if you will. And if Hill thinks she failed to provide good evidence for this, then he can't have read the book very closely.

Frankly, Brodie's book has been the starting point for nearly all subsequent investigation of the life of Joseph Smith. Some have agreed with her, and others have disagreed, but all have had to reckon with her one way or another. That, I daresay, is a testament to the power of what she wrote.

[_MCB]

Frankly, Brodie's book has been the starting point for nearly all subsequent investigation of the life of Joseph Smith. Some have agreed with her, and others have disagreed, but all have had to reckon with her one way or another.

And just because a person disagrees with her in part, is no reason to reject the entire book. It was a pioneering work in its day.

[_Dad of a Mormon]

Thanks for all the responses.

I don't have the background knowledge and extensive experience with Mormonism like most of you. So I wanted to get a perspective from those who have studied it for much longer than I have. For my purposes, NMKMH is a good place to start and gives a good overview of his life. I don't take her psycho-analysis too seriously and I realize that there are going to be areas of disagreement.

But I find this discussion about the accuracy of her book very valuable.

[_Uncle Dale]

Brodie's book was brilliant
...

What were her top three historical discoveries, not already
communicated by writers such as I.W. Riley, B.H. Roberts,
Dale Morgan, Daryl Chase, D.H. Bays, George Arbaugh,
the "Temple Lot Case" records, RLDS publications, hundreds
of old Salt Lake Tribune articles, etc.?

What did readers know, after finishing the last page of NMKMH
that they could not have obtained by reading historical sources
easily available in prominent libraries prior to 1946?

UD

[_Dad of a Mormon]

What were her top three historical discoveries, not already
communicated by writers such as I.W. Riley, B.H. Roberts,
Dale Morgan, Daryl Chase, D.H. Bays, George Arbaugh,
the "Temple Lot Case" records, RLDS publications, hundreds
of old Salt Lake Tribune articles, etc.?

What did readers know, after finishing the last page of NMKMH
that they could not have obtained by reading historical sources
easily available in prominent libraries prior to 1946?

UD

Do biographies have to break new ground to be useful? Isn't it possible for a biography to have value by providing a thoughtful presentation of existing material?

[_Uncle Dale]

What were her top three historical discoveries, not already
communicated by writers such as I.W. Riley, B.H. Roberts,
Dale Morgan, Daryl Chase, D.H. Bays, George Arbaugh,
the "Temple Lot Case" records, RLDS publications, hundreds
of old Salt Lake Tribune articles, etc.?

What did readers know, after finishing the last page of NMKMH
that they could not have obtained by reading historical sources
easily available in prominent libraries prior to 1946?

UD

Do biographies have to break new ground to be useful? Isn't it possible for a biography to have value by providing a thoughtful presentation of existing material?

It is possible to rate Brodie's book primarily upon its effects in
collating and explicating previously reported historical material.
In which case I'd grant the content a C- and the writing style
an A. However, given the fact that Brodie was a Mormon, and
that she actually visited primary source depositories such as
the Yale Mormon collection and the RLDS Archives, I'll up that
C- to a C+. She deserves some credit for her optimism, in thinking
that a Latter Day Saint in 1945 could publish such stuff without
being excommunicated.

But, of course, she was cut off -- while the less vocal Dale Morgan
died an observant member.

What were the most important outcomes of her efforts? Well, she
made footnotes and primary sources digestible to layman readers,
and thus forced her inevitable critics to do the same. A sort of
toe-in-the-water saintly scholarship, which had to be carried out
before more rigorous studies could be put in print. B.H. Roberts
had pretended to that sort of reporting in his Comprehensive History,
but Brodie took primary source examination and critical apparatus a
step beyond Roberts' faith-promoting polemics.

The other outcome from Brodie's reporting is that she destroyed the
previously prevalent "Mormon conspiracy" viewpoint among the Gentiles.
That effect did not happen overnight, but eventually books such as
Cross's The Burned Over District began to cite her as the expert
source on LDS origins. Beginning in the 1950s the non-LDS scholarly
press presented the Mormons as a misguided (but sincere) group of
pious people led astray by a single originating religious genius. Instead
of Council of Fifty Danites, promoting a theocratic conspiracy, the LDS
began to be portrayed as a benign bunch who merited having one of
their Apostles chosen as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture -- quite an
evolution away from the dark days of 1886-1890.

Were it not for Sister Brodie, there would probably be no MHA today,
and no schools of higher education implementing Mormon Studies programs.

I wonder how much of that development might survive a disclosure of
Mormonism not only originating in a theocratic conspiracy, but having
undergone a decades-long coverup, and continuation of the same goals?

Read President Sidney Rigdon's Spring, 1844 Conference Talk, part two...

UD