Rating: 
Summary: Seven points I have for discussion . . .
Review: After fifty reviews, not much data can be added, but many conclusions can be reached!Moreover, like the 2000 election or OJ Simpson, most everyone already has an opinion about this book, so this probably won't do much good. But . . . 1) Brodie's style is readable, which is more of a criticism of everyone else. It flows and is quite readable, which is a rare thing. 2) The tone of the book is quite unusual. It is almost a fictional narrative or a speech where the heartstrings are played like a violin. She builds up suspense (which is not quite scholarly), ask questions that she never answers, and peers into the mind and motives of Joseph Smith. She, therefore, is getting beyond the manuscripts and primary sources, and becomes a "scholarly outlaw." How does she know what Joseph Smith felt and thought unless Joseph Smith tells her? And if there is no journal entry, where is the data? Ascholarship! 3) Many of the conclusions about the book are really conclusions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and not about what Ms. Brodie says, inasmuch as people who dislike the Church will agree with her. This is called "multiplying the mirrors, but not increasing the light." 4) Ms. Brodie asserts a "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" interpretation of Joseph Smith: "You don't know how you got there/You just know you want out/believing in yourself/as much as you doubt." But confidence is the one thing we see with Joseph Smith. Two Temples, several cities planned and founded, three-star general in the Militia, mayor, presidential candidate, prophet, seer, revelator, and father to boot! All this in forty-four years! I for one feel lazy! 5) Logic 1: "Ad Hominem" and "Genetic Fallacy": I am an active endowed member, and a BYU graduate to boot, but are my conclusions tainted because of may bias? Is "Schindler's List" biased because Spielburg is Jewish? Bytheway, I bough my copy in Provo, UT, and the BYU Library has sixteen copies! 6) Logic 2: "Hasty Generalization": Are you going to base all of you knowledge on Joseph Smith from one book. Yes, this cuts both ways, but still are you going to rely on one source for your understanding of Joseph Smith. I though Amazon.com patrons were smarter than that! 7) Alternative books are Bushman's "The Origins of Mormonism," and Madsen's "Joseph Smith the Prophet." Or you could read his history on your own, and make up your own mind independent of pundits, fanatics, and *gasp* Amazon.com reviewers!
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly good
Review: This book is appropriately titled because it give a side of the story that is seldom heard within the Mormon religion. Unfortunately, that is also it's only drawback. Brody gives much of the "negative" information while minimizing the many characteristics that made Joseph Smith such a charismatic and popular figure. It is good that people have a place to learn about Joseph's deceitful living as a youth, the real history behind the Book of Mormon, and his philandering with married women while prophet; but the biography would be much more powerful if it included a more balanced presentation of his strengths, also. Despite the slant against Joseph Smith, this book is excellent. Brody has done thorough and well-documented research and has written in a style that makes this book a pleasureable read. It is a must for anyone interested in American, Western, or Mormon history. However, this is probably not the book that a practicing Mormon who is happy with their faith should read.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a Read
Review: There are few biographies of merit regarding Joseph Smith. It seems difficult for biographers to be neutral on him. Although the author genuinely attempts to be unbiased, she often takes facts from his life and comes up with a negative interpretation of his actions: much the way a church member would take the same events and come up with a positive interpretation. The book is very readable and there is factual information in the book that is difficult to find in other places. These are the highlights of this biography. The downside is the author's unintentional slant against Joseph which leads to many assumptions that may or may not be accurate. In sum, to better understand the life of Joseph Smith this would be a good book to read, but the reader should certainly get more than this one view point before making any firm judgements.
Rating: 
Summary: This will stay with you
Review: I picked up No Man Knows My History because I like Fawn Brodie's work. It's not an attack on Mormonism. It's not an attack on Joseph Smith. If anything I was struck by the sympathetic portrayal of Smith and his followers. Fawn Brodie doesn't appear to enjoy writing unsavory things about her subject. I'd say the book is a fair and accurate one. The writing is so enjoyable. Brodie wrote nonfiction with a fiction author's flair. I picked it up at nine in the morning and kept coming back to it until I'd finnished it at around midnight.
Rating:
Summary: No M'am that's not history
Review: I am amazed that this book is still being sold and getting positive reviews. I spent two years researching the claims of this books and discovered that the woman is just a bald faced liar. She quotes out of context, to give a totally opposite meaning, and just plain makes up stuff. Brodie was a disaffected Mormon with a grudge. She also did some hatchet jobs on some of our nations' founding fathers. She presumes to read Joseph Smith's mind, omits important information, distorts and abuses the facts. A couple of little books written in rebuttle have been No Ma'am That's Not History, by Hugh Nibley, and Exploding the Myth about Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, by F.L.Stewart. A fair book about Joseph Smith I would reccommend is Joseph Smith, an American Prophet by John Henry Evans (a non-Mormon) or the The History of Joseph Smith by his mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Don't waste your money on Brodie, unless you like sensationalized historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Still the Best Biography of Joseph Smith....
Review: Fawn Brodie's biography of Joseph Smith is still the best book ever written about him that has been published. In a way, that's a shame. "No Man Knows My History" was published in 1945, so historians have had 56 years to write a better book. For some reason, that hasn't occurred. Other books written about Smith, such as Donna Hill's "Joseph Smith, the First Mormon" are not nearly as critical and insightful as they need to be. Legitimate criticisms of the book include the fact that it is written more to be interesting than a strictly scholarly work. Brodie does use interesting language and sometimes draws too much on the flamboyant and theatrical parts of Joseph Smith's personality. Additionally, while its been proven Brodie reached a pretty accurate conclusion, in the first edition of her book she relies too much on the so-called "Pearsall transcript" of Smith's 1826 trial for money-digging in Bainbridge, NY. Although, subsequent research bears out most of the conclusions. "No Man Knows My History" is not without a number of weaknesses. It is clear that Fawn views Smith as a fraud and an impostor. Perhaps, she didn't look hard enough to find some "middle ground" between "Prophet" and "fraud". Maybe, Smith really believed he was transcribing ancient scripture and had been annointed by God to be Prophet, when in fact he did not. Some people do suffer hallucinations. In fact, a number of people who are terribly rational most of the time claim to have dreams or revelations occasionally which can only be described as "supernatural". Another possibility is he really believed he was inspired to lead people to Christ, but invented the Book of Mormon to get the attention of people. Brodie does not adequately take into the account the following in my estimation: 1. The sincerity expressed in the writings in Joseph Smith's own journals which have been published and are available to read. 2. The fact that the three witnesses to the Golden Plates, Cowdery, Whitmer, and Harris, never retracted their statements about the Plates and the Book of Mormon, even on their death beds. (although they admitted they saw the Plates with their "spiritual eyes", as opposed to their "physical eyes"). 3. The fact that Smith was willing to face being persecuted, tarred and feathered, and killed rather than give up what he was preaching. There is a puzzle to Smith claiming to be a "prophet" that has never been adequately explained by anyone. Although, there is plenty of evidence refuting Smith's claims and those of his church. The weaknesses, though, are more than offset by the research she did and the material she found. She documents the fact that Smith's father had a dream which later appeared in its entirety in First Nephi in the Book of Mormon, that Smith was tried for being an impostor and moneydigger in an 1826 court proceeding in Bainbridge, New York, that Smith routinely used to seer stones and claimed that with these stones he could see buried treasure underground, and in her 1971 edition, reported the three conflicting accounts that have been given of Smith's First Vision. Finally, she talks about the fact that Smith did not translate other scripture, the Book of Abraham, from Egyptian Papyri as claimed. However, Brodie's greatest contribution is in establishing the context and background in which the Book of Mormon was produced. She talks about the many millenial religious movements where Smith grew up, the commonly held views that Indians were really descendants of Hebrew tribes, anti-catholic prejudice, anti-free masonry prejudice, and prejudice against people with darker skins. One can find elements of all of these in the Book of Mormon if one looks closely enough at it. One who wants too, can see how the Mormon religion and the Book of Mormon arose from this context. No Man Knows My History is a classic. While it would be a mistake to read nothing else about Joseph Smith, skipping the book is missing the best biography that currently exists about him.
Rating:
Summary: A Timeless Classic in Mormon Studies
Review: I've consummed a library of books on Mormon studies, and had held off on reading "No Man Knows My History" because I had already read a considerable quantity of biographical material on Joseph Smith. I capitulated at last only because it is among the most well known books on early Mormon history. I am so glad I did. No book could have pulled it all together and made sense of it all as well as Fawn Brodie's book. It is as valuable today as it was when it was first written over half a century ago. None of the objective scholarship of recent years contradicts her conclusions, but rather validates her, page after page after page. Her insight is piercing, her style is almost poetic, and her message is powerful. It is not any easy book for a Mormon to read, as is evidenced by some of the reactionary attacks Brodie receives in some of the reviews already written. The faithful do not want to hear that Joseph Smith was an "evolutionary revolutionary," his doctrine growing with his ego and sense of personal magnificence. But this is no mean swipe at the character of Joseph Smith...if anything, you come away with a sense of awe at the creative genius, the charismatic giant that he must have been. If he brought scorn and violence upon himself and his people, it was a measure of the power he produced and the fear that he struck in lesser men with whom he shared his time and space. Nevertheless, Brodie's exploration of the world of Joseph Smith and the context within which his doctrine evolved is brilliant. She is adept at recognizing the role that projection has played throughout his career, beginning with the Book of Mormon, and continuing on through all of his other writings, including the History of the Church. Ms. Brodie says it best herself in the opening lines of Chapter 19: "A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become." Or as is so often the case, "less what a man was than what he wished he had become." To one who has studied the role of paradigms in shaping the way we interpret our world, Brodie's book makes the most beautiful sense. To one who's faith is at stake, however, her book may serve to threaten the idylic, heroic legend of Joseph Smith that has been carefully nurtured since his murder in 1844. This is among the finest pieces of historical literature I have had the priveledge of reading. Her scholarship and writing and fearless approach to tackle controversial issues with objectivity and sensitivity is matched only by Juanita Brooks in the realm of Mormon studies. This is a book not just to read, but to consume.
Rating:
Summary: if your interested in this stuff
Review: Sorry folks but you can't use the Ensign as a quotable source. It's called argument from authority. (My God is right also, so were does that leave us?). It's not accepted in accepted discussions. Also standing behind Nibley as an unofficial spokesman for your church instead of the policy makers in the western Vatican isn't kosher. Maybe you can get Nibley to show the genetic connection between the American Indians and the Israelites which is the main theme of the Joe's book anyway. (Mormon supercession ). The Mormons themselves can't even with the new genetics department at BYU. Even with the largest and most costly archeological expedition launched anywhere to Central America the efforts have been unable to substantiate his contention. Brodie, an often-overlooked fact, was a professor at one of the better universities that study folklore and cults. Her book is not only well written, but historically accurate, by way of research and not just genealogical connections. But why stop here. Read "Joseph Smith and the Orgins of The Book of Mormon", by David Persuitte. "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus", by Charles M. Larson is a must. Both of these validate Brodies claims. The question for me is much simpler however. I just want to know where the horses came from, and the elephants, and the steel, and the wheels, and the silk.
Rating: 
Summary: Historical Fiction
Review: I'd compare this book to the movie, Shakespeare in Love. It's based on a lot of facts, but it's completely untrue. Fawn Brodie is totally inept when it comes to real scholarship. For example, one of her sources was a group of people who had claimed to see ghosts and claimed that Joseph Smith was some sort of sorcerer... she also uses a source from a man who described Joseph Smith as short and dumb-looking and claimed Joseph Smith used phrases like "can't not." (Joseph Smith was 6' tall and very distinguished looking as well as extremely articulate). Both sources were proven liars, but she used both of them even though their stories completely contradicted other reliable sources that she left out! Furthermore, she ignored countless first-hand witnesses and embraced every negative news paper article she could find, even though yellow journalism and discrimination were rampant in the news of that day. Her novel is entertaining, but that's partly because of her amazing mind-reading of those who died 150 years ago and her intuition about what people REALLY meant when they spoke. Fawn Brodie is a nerd and is obviously an atheist/agnostic. She's not even a scholar... she could probably write fiction or work for Enquirer magazine. If one wanted to buy this, one might check the ridiculous book she wrote about Thomas Jefferson... critics spotted that one as a sham immediately... the exact same scholarly follies are practiced in this novel as well. She's a rotten scholar, but her writing is interesting in a Jerry Springer sort of way.
Rating:
Summary: I love the book, I love the subject of the book.
Review: This book may be considered "anti-Mormon" by some. I can't say that I agree with everything that was written in the book, but most of it, yes. Contrary to the belief of many LDS church members, Joseph Smith was not a 100% perfect man. He was human, this is something that sould be realized. This is what the book talks about, it is the very, very human, imperfect side of Joseph Smith. And I appreciate Ms. Brodie for having enough courage to write the book. She doesn't seem bitter at anything. I think she did excellent research, she has many quotes from Mormons and Non-Mormons in the book, journal entries etc... from the people who were alive and knew Joseph or knew about him during his time. I recommend this book to people who want to see the church from both sides of the fence.
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