| Book Review | Western Historical Quarterly, 32.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WHQ online. About 191 words from this article are provided below; about 326 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Western Historical Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Western Historical Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | Western Historical Quarterly, 32.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life. By Newell G. Bringhurst. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. xviii + 350 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)

Fawn McKay Brodie chose biographical subjects well: Joseph Smith, charismatic religious leader; Senator Thaddeus Stevens, southern champion of freed slaves; Thomas Jefferson, owner and father of slaves; Richard Burton, nineteenth-century adventurer; and, Richard Nixon. Each man's story needed little embellishment, yet Brodie's thorough psychoanalysis produced new and provocative narratives. Newell G. Bringhurst's first introduction to Brodie, as it was perhaps for many readers, came via the controversy surrounding the 1945 publication of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, a book that most Mormons believed inaccurately portrayed Smith as a sexual libertine who justified his predilection with imagined divine revelations. The publication of No Man Knows My History estranged Brodie from her paternal family, which included David O. McKay, future president of the LDS church, and the religious culture of her youth. In spite of the controversy, the work stood for decades as Smith's definitive biography and her narrative remains a template for histories of early Mormonism. . . .

There are about 326 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.