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<\/strong><\/p>\nI suspect that John G. Turner\u2019s Brigham Young: \u00a0Pioneer Prophet<\/em><\/a> will be the definitive biography of Brigham Young for the next few decades. \u00a0Overall, this is a good thing.<\/p>\n But it may also be a troubling thing, at least for some people. I wholeheartedly recommended the recent Joseph Smith<\/a>, David O. McKay<\/a>, and Spencer W. Kimball<\/a> biographies to all members of the Church. \u00a0Sure, they are a little less sanitized than we are used to, but the picture in each one of those works is of a prophet of God who had some flaws, with far more emphasis on the \u201cprophet\u201d part than on the \u201cflawed\u201d part.<\/p>\n This book? \u00a0Not so much. \u00a0I have serious reservations about recommending it to the average church member; if you need your prophet to be larger than life, or even just better than the average bear, this book is not for you. \u00a0I think there is a substantial risk that people raised on hagiographic, presentist images of prophets would have their testimonies rocked, if not shattered, by this book. Perhaps this is just an idiosyncratic reaction, but I felt an increased appreciation for Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, and Spencer W. Kimball after reading their biographies. \u00a0I can\u2019t say the same for Brigham Young; I liked him–and respected him–less. \u00a0Much less. [ftnt 1]<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s Brigham Young\u2019s fault for doing some deeply creepy stuff [ftnt 2]. \u00a0Maybe that\u2019s the Church\u2019s fault for presenting such an unremittingly hagiographic portrait [ftnt 3] of our leaders that any subsequent brush with reality feels like getting tackled. [ftnt 4] Maybe it is Turner\u2019s fault for not giving the reader a sense of why people would have followed Brigham Young. (That is, I think, the main weakness of this book: \u00a0you are not left with any reason as to why people would have made the enormous sacrifices that were part of believing that Brigham Young was a prophet.) \u00a0Maybe it is some combination of the above. \u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n But if we choose to bracket that concern, we are left with a truly excellent book. \u00a0Turner has leveraged his access to the Brigham Young Papers into a readable [ftnt 5], fascinating biography. \u00a0The work\u2019s main strength is how it puts into context Brigham Young in particular and Mormonism in general, based on Turner’s expertise in 19th century American religious history. \u00a0For example, he points out that belief in prophets, speaking in tongues, and angelic visions were common (page 29). \u00a0This changes the question from \u201cwhat\u2019s up with angels in America?\u201d to \u201cwhy did Mormonism survive when all of these other movements with angelic visitations didn\u2019t?\u201d \u00a0I think the Deseret alphabet looks a little looney today, but Turner nuances the story when he points out that \u201cYoung was not the first noteworthy American to promote such ideas\u201d (page 249). Turner\u2019s explanation that the kinds of attacks levied against the church were very similar to the kinds of anti-Catholic sentiment of the era (page 302) is a helpful corrective to the narrative that is sometimes promulgated that the LDS were the only Americans ever picked on for their religion.<\/p>\n His reading of the Mountain Meadows massacre is on par with that of Massacre at Mountain Meadows<\/a>: \u00a0Brigham Young was not personally, directly responsible for ordering the massacre, but his violent rhetoric encouraged those who did (page 280). \u00a0(Further, his knowledge of the wrongdoers but lack of punishment of them led many inside and outside the church to conclude that he did not condemn their actions.) \u00a0Once again, Turner does a great job of contextualizing the situation by indicating the extent of 19th century vigilantism. \u00a0He does note that a mass murder directed at white Protestants was most unusual; African Americans and Native Americans were far more likely to be victims of this type of action in 19th century America (page 279). There are many more instances where Turner\u2019s provision of context helps the reader better understand what was and what was not exceptional in 19th century Mormonism.<\/p>\n Turner, unlike the authors of the Smith, McKay, and Kimball biographies, is not LDS. \u00a0There\u2019s actually a benefit to the Church in this: \u00a0there are many instances where we can take his explanation of the larger context of events at face value, whereas we might have dismissed it as a misguided efforts at apologetics had the very same point been made by an LDS scholar. (I realize that this is not fair. \u00a0But that doesn’t make it any less true. \u00a0Read some of the mainstream reviews of Rough Stone Rolling<\/em> if you don’t believe me.) \u00a0 If an LDS author wrote about Brigham Young\u2019s early suspicions of John C Bennett (page 82), we<\/em> might be a little suspicious. \u00a0When Turner explores other instances of 19th century intolerance for outsiders alongside Brigham Young\u2019s (fairly shocking) statements about Gentiles (page 171), we have no reason to see Turner as biased. [ftnt 6]<\/p>\n There were a few points where I wondered whether Turner\u2019s non-LDS status led him to miss certain things that a church member would have seen. \u00a0For example, Turner says in the introduction that \u201cMormons venerate their ancestors\u201d (page 3). \u00a0That\u2019s language that makes most Mormons bristle, but I don\u2019t think Turner intended to offend here. \u00a0At one point, he described the early work of Joseph Smith: \u00a0\u201cSmith and his followers spoke of the \u2018restitution of all things\u2019\u201d (pages 23-24). \u00a0Mormons are very familiar with the phrase \u201crestoration of all things,\u201d but we don\u2019t say \u201crestitution of all things.\u201d \u00a0Perhaps Joseph Smith did say that (once? \u00a0frequently? \u00a0always?), but I have no idea and there is no information in the text to help me figure out what is going on here. Similarly, when Turner describes early temple rituals (page 86), I can\u2019t tell if the differences between those and modern practice are actually differences, or slight misunderstandings as to what is happening. \u00a0At one point, he refers to Joseph Smith\u2019s political \u201cstratagems\u201d (page 89), a loaded word for any student of the Book of Mormon (see Alma 43:30). \u00a0He also calls Brigham Young Mormonism\u2019s \u201cchief priest\u201d (page 131). \u00a0That is language not familiar to modern LDS and I wonder if he is misunderstanding (or perhaps speaking metaphorically, which is a bad move when talking about a group like 19th century Mormons who take pretty much everything literally) or if Brigham Young (or the people around him) used that title. \u00a0Another example: \u00a0he describes Brigham Young preparing the people with seven years\u2019 supplies at the time of the Utah War and he makes the connection to the biblical Joseph and Egypt but not to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 4:4 (page 273), which is a much closer parallel because of the context of war.<\/p>\n I do think that his non-member status left him free to frame things in a way that most LDS historians would not. \u00a0(Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is, I suppose, up to the judgment of the reader.) For example, he regards Zion\u2019s Camp as a physical failure but a spiritual success. \u00a0That is, I think, the standard LDS reading, but what is not standard is to summarize the event by saying that \u201cin practical terms, Zion\u2019s Camp was a predictable failure\u201d (page 37) or that \u201cby mustering an armed force to \u2018avenge\u2019 the Lord of his \u2018enemies,\u2019 Smith had associated his church in the minds of many Americans with violence and vigilantism\u201d (page 38). \u00a0Clearly, the banking business in Kirtland was a disaster, but when you put the word \u201cmisguided\u201d (page 49) on it, you raise some really touchy questions about who was doing the guiding. (He also calls it an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d [page 54].) But, once again, Turner’s contextualizing is helpful by pointing out that issuing banknotes without a charter was \u201cnot all that unusual\u201d (page 49) at that time and neither were bank failures (page 52). \u00a0Again, if an LDS historian said that, I think we\u2019d all be likely to dismiss it as being excessively apologetic. \u00a0(Turner points out that the banking debacle was the one time that Brigham Young doubted Joseph Smith, before quickly abandoning that thought.) \u00a0I also cannot imagine an LDS historian writing this about polygamy: \u00a0\u201cWhether Smith was motivated by religious obedience or pursued sexual dalliances clothed with divine sanction cannot be fully resolved through historical analysis\u201d (page 88). \u00a0He later describes Joseph Smith\u2019s plans in Nauvoo as reflecting \u201cgrowing desperation\u201d (page 105). \u00a0When he writes that \u201cit remains unclear whether Young or only lower-ranking church leaders like Turley had sanctioned the [counterfeiting] operation in Nauvoo\u201d (page 127), he\u2019s being, I think, fair-minded and yet not open to the accusations of soft-pedaling that an LDS writer would be. \u00a0When describing the use of handcarts for emigrants, I think the standard LDS story of the handcarts is \u201cthis was a basically good program with one big tragedy.\u201d \u00a0Turner\u2019s take is that this was a basically terrible idea that had a few successes before Brigham Young realized it was a bad idea and canned it (page 260). \u00a0There are other instances where an LDS author would have been nicer. \u00a0Again, whether that is a good or bad thing is in the eye of the reader.<\/p>\n And yet there are some ways in which Turner is extremely sympathetic to Brigham Young. \u00a0There are times when he could have made hay but chose not to. \u00a0To wit: \u00a0Brigham\u2019s son Joseph was born eight months after his parents\u2019 marriage license was issued and seven months after the marriage certificate date, but not only does Turner not point this out (I had to do the math all by myself!), he notes that \u201ca church marriage may have preceded the license date\u201d (page 36). \u00a0Similarly, Turner does not flinch from showing Brigham Young\u2019s dictatorial side, but he usually explains it in terms of his not wanting to repeat the problems in Nauvoo by allowing apostasy to flourish and allowing enemies to get a foothold. \u00a0Turner reads Young as stamping out every indication of heresy and responding in kind to enemies in order to avoid repeating Joseph Smith\u2019s fate. \u00a0(Page 332). \u00a0He mentions this multiple times, and he easily could have omitted this charitable explanation for Brigham\u2019s iron fist. \u00a0Turner\u2019s fair-mindedness also comes out in his thinking about Brigham Young and women: \u00a0he writes that there simply is no way to smooth out the conflicting evidence, given the contradictory statements he made: \u00a0\u201cOver the thirty years of his church presidency, Young said so many different things about women that with selective quotations from his discourses one could turn him into either a misogynist or a proto-feminist. \u00a0Neither portrait is accurate\u201d \u00a0(page 379). Turner also describes a Brigham Young who softens a little with age (toward dissenters, toward women; page 264 and 360). \u00a0It would have been easy for him to skim over these changes in Young if he had wanted to make him out to be an ogre.<\/p>\n So, here’s the Readers’ Digest version of my review: \u00a0this book is a real treat, but it might completely destroy your testimony if you can’t handle a fallible, bawdy, often mistaken, sometimes mean, and generally weird prophet. \u00a0[ftnt 7]<\/p>\n [1] \u00a0Which doesn\u2019t mean that he wasn\u2019t deeply awesome in some ways. \u00a0Here’s Brigham Young rejecting a man\u2019s divorce petition: \u00a0\u201c[you] took her for better or for worse, and had no right to ill use her, and if she shit in the bed and laid in it until noon; [you] must bare it\u201d (page 242). \u00a0Also on the same topic: \u00a0\u201csimilarly, Young told another man that \u2018if you have drawn a red hot iron between your legs and scorched yourself bear it without grunting.\u2019 He observed that he offered such advice against his pecuniary interest, as he charged ten dollars for a certificate of divorce.\u201d \u00a0And: \u00a0Brigham Young said that he had tried bathing every week, but concluded that he \u201cwas well aware that this is not for everyone\u201d (page 256).<\/p>\n [2] Dubious financial practices? \u00a0Check (page 52). Knife fights in the temple? \u00a0Check (page 53). Making false statements? \u00a0Check (pages 59, 76, and 153). \u00a0Polyandry? \u00a0Check (pages 94, 136, 376). \u00a0Lying about polygamy? \u00a0Check (page 97). Extra-judicial violence, killing, and castration? \u00a0Check (pages 122, 186, 188, 259, 285). \u00a0Racism? \u00a0Check (pages 124, 218, 222, 362). Sexist language? \u00a0Check (page 158). Secretly ordaining his pre-teen sons as apostles? \u00a0Check (page 382). Violent rhetoric? \u00a0Check (page 349 and 350). \u00a0Foul language? \u00a0Check (pages 173, 305, and 320). \u00a0Blood atonement? \u00a0Check (pages 186 and 258). False prophecies? \u00a0Check (page 197). Paying bribes? \u00a0Check (page 369). \u00a0Major hypocrisy? \u00a0Check (page 400). \u00a0Members of the Quorum of the Twelve questioning his use of church funds and his doctrinal teachings? \u00a0Check (page 410). \u00a0(Irrelevant side note: \u00a0I don\u2019t know why people act as if polyandry is somehow worse than polygamy; \u00a0I think they are just being sexist and don\u2019t even realize it.)<\/p>\n