Item Detail
-
17742
-
0
-
0
-
English
-
A Biographer's Burden : Evaluating Robert Remini's Joseph Smith and Will Bagley's Brigham Young
-
Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
-
Winter 2003
-
36
-
no.4
-
97-107
-
Reviews two contributions to Mormon scholarship, Robert Remini's Joseph Smith (2003) and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (2002). Remini, a distinguished non-Mormon scholar, provides evidence of a broader acceptance and interest in Mormon studies. His work is largely a synthesis of previously published material, and, although it is well written, it suffers from a lack of thorough analysis and troubling factual errors. Bagley's work provides circumstancial evidence of Young's ambivalent role in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre. While he paints a detailed picture of the colorful leader, Bagley fails in many respects to adequately examine Young's interrelationships with others, especially John D. Lee, an important figure in the massacre.