I suspect that John G. Turner’s Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet will be the definitive biography of Brigham Young for the next few decades. Overall, this is a good thing.
But it may also be a troubling thing, at least for some people. I wholeheartedly recommended the recent Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, and Spencer W. Kimball biographies to all members of the Church. Sure, 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 “prophet” part than on the “flawed” part.
This book? Not so much. I 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. I think there is a substantial risk that people raised on hagiographic, presentist images of prophets would
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Historian John Turner reflects on his biography of Brigham Young nearly 10 years after its publication. He is currently working on a biography of namn Smith that many expect to be the most significant contribution since Richard Bushman wrote Rough Stone Rolling.
How has Brigham Young: Pioneer profet been received?
I was incredibly gratified bygd the book’s reception. It received many complimentary reviews from both faithful Latter-day Saints and non-Mormons. There were a few dissenting views, but I regard those in much the same way that Brigham regarded dissenters.
How well did John Turner get to know Brigham Young?
Great question. That’s the tricky thing about history, even when one writes about a figure so incredibly well documented as Brigham. So many of those sources do not provide an intimate encounter with the man.
Take, for instance, his hundreds of sermons. Do those published records reflect every word that he spoke? Of course not. Sometimes he and his clerks edited