Joseph Smith (Penguin Lives)

Rating:
Summary: A fair analysis
Review: As a Latter-day Saint, I found little new or interesting in Remini's biography. He covers the main points in much the same way you will find in numerous Mormon-authored bios, articles, and pamphlets. The casual student of Mormonism, however, will find a largely balanced, fair sketch of the Prophet's life--non-Mormons in particular may wish to pick this up. Remini, not a Mormon himself, treats his subject with respect, and for the most part allows the reader to decide for herself whether the Prophet's claims were true.

The primary angle Remini offers is his analysis of Joseph Smith as a product of his own time. For example, Remini introduces the Prophet's revelatory abilities by discussing how visions, seer stones, etc. were common in the early 1800s, and Remini finds many American ideals in the Book of Mormon. This is an interesting angle, but in my view fell a little short because Remini largely fails to examine other possible influences on the Prophet's work and doctrines: for example, the presence of Hebraistic language structure in the Book of Mormon. Remini becomes subjective at times, seemingly violating his own prefatory promise, that he would let the Prophet speak for himself.

Rating:
Summary: A fair analysis
Review: I admire the author's thoughtful words, but by ignoring the Reorganized LDS church, which the Prophet's son Joseph Smith III founded in 1860 with Emma Smith's assistance, a huge part of church history goes unmentioned. The RLDS (now called Community of Christ) has in it's headquarters in Independence MO, two portraits, one of Joseph Smith Jr, and one of his wife Emma Smith. I believe these were painted during Joseph's lifetime, thereby making the statement in the back of this book's jacket that the cover portrait is the only one painted during Joseph's lifetime inaccurate.

Rating:
Summary: A good overview of Joseph Smith
Review: I bought this book after seeing the author on CSPAN talking about the book from a bookstore in Salt Lake City. He admits that he is not a Mormon, but he found Joseph Smith an intersting person. After reading the book I can see that Remini does like Joseph Smith, yet he didn't appear to write the book to raise him up, nor tear him down.

As a member of the Church myself, a lot of the information he presents is from Church sources, and I've read a lot of it before. But I really enjoyed the material he gave from other sources. I got a feel for Joseph Smith as a person, which, like all prophets since Adam, he really was. I would recommend this book to members and non-members alike.

Rating:
Summary: Quality Condensed Study
Review: I found this book pretty interesting because I was never really exposed to Mormonism and its prophet before. Most people have a very superficial view of the Mormons. If you asked the common man what they knew about Mormons, the first thing they would say is probably "polygamy". Of course, the truth is much more intriguing than that. This book is a good place to start, for it concerns the man whose "visions" sparked one of the most fascinating entries in American religious history.

Author Robert Remini does a great job of importing his wealth of knowledge concerning Jacksonian era America and using it to really explain the social context of Mormonism. His brief but interesting description of the Second Great Awakening really sets the stage for Joseph Smith's transition from failed farmer to holy prophet. At the time, especially in upstate New York, many Americans were swept up in religious fervor that involved fiery preachers and large-scale public rituals that seem to resemble mass exorcisms. Smith's family was very intoned with this sense of religious longing, and it no doubt influenced his future pursuits.

Remini is fair when he tackles some of Smith's religious "visions". This is hard because, frankly, if you look at the situation in a purely rational view, Smith is only a few degrees below a David Koresh figure. In fact, as I read the book, I could not help but to draw parallels between the two American messiahs. But that's my opinion, and Remini holds his own as an impartial historian. I felt, however, he sometimes looked too sympathetically on Joseph Smith. Although Smith does not seem to be a bad man, he did makes some "revelations" that could easily be identified as self serving, such as the amount of money he would take in, his unpaid debts, and his legalization of polygamy. Remini also treads too lightly on some of the Mormon's historical views, which are blatantly false.

Remini had a very hard job though, and these minor complaints I have do not take away from the books overall quality. I am sure Mormons will probably complain that Remini was too hard on Smith, so he really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. In summation, if you want a good starting place to study Mormonism and its early history, this is as best place to start as any.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I just want to leave this short and sweet (just like the book)... The book was great. I couldn't put it down.
I really appreciated the author's distant approach in laying forth the facts. He himself is not mormon, but leaves the reader to interpret the details presented as so desired... Now go read it! :)

Rating:
Summary: A great life from Penguin by a great historian
Review: Robert Remini is the best historian of the Jacksonian era. His previous efforts have focused on the political leaders, three volumes on Jackson himself, one on Clay, and one on Webster, another on Van Buren. He has also examined whole hosts of smaller issues related to this period. He is in full command of the subject matter related to this period.

Whoever had the idea of assigning Remini to write on Joseph Smith should get an award. For he is a novel and interesting choice. Usually books on religious leaders are written by people steeped in theory and dogma. It is far better to have Smith's biography written by one who can place his ideas within their proper context. Remini knows and understands the particulars of the "Second Great Awakening" and the various religious and intellectual trends that marked the period of roughly 1812-1840. In doing so, he is able to explain much.

Remini shyes away from the question of whether or not Smith was was a prophet or con man and leaves the reader to make up his own mind about this, in doing so he steers a path between those who write books of praise about the Morman church's founders and those who criticize it.

This book is an outstanding addition to the Penguin Brief Lives series and yet another triumph for the foremost historian of age of Jackson.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Respectful & Cogent Biography
Review: Robert Remini's book about the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. is highly respectful of the religion and the Prophet himself. His language is such, that not at any time does he fall victim to the negative and often inaccurate reports of those who are not happy with the LDS Church. Not a single time, does he say, that the Prophet's words are not true.

The beauty of Remini's book is that in 200 pages, he wrote a fast reading biography, that in essence overlays societal history side by side, with the history of Joseph Smith, Jr. and the creation of the LDS Church.

The long journeys, the hardships, the discrimination and the attempted exterminations are all validated and told with what appears to be historical accuracy. The point of Mr. Remini's book is not glorification, but truly accurate history. The author relied very heavily on the writings of Joseph Smith, Jr. and the LDS Church for his information. He also relied on hundreds of other sources, listed in his Bibliography.

For a fair and unbiased and quick reading understanding of the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., I have not read a better book. This book is especially recommended to those interested in comparative religion.

Rating:
Summary: Very objective account of Joseph Smith
Review: Robert V. Remini wrote what I can only considered as a very unbiased and objective account of life of Joseph Smith who founded the Church of Latter-Day Saints, known as the "Mormons". In what can be considered as a very short book, Remini make no judgement on the faith that Smith founded. He write with certain level of clarity and fairness on the actions and purposefullness of Joseph Smith, as a product of his environment, his society and world which surrounds him.

The book doesn't try to justified or damned Joseph Smith as a religious leader who founded a new faith in this nation, but tried to accessed him as a man of his time. Well researched, nicely written and fast reading material, I think this would be a great introductary biography on Joseph Smith for anyone who might be interested.

If I had a singular gripe, it was that it was too short. I wished Remini would have done a full scale biography on Joseph Smith in details. Maybe the author can write one on Brigham Young who definitely needs a biography that don't praised or condemned him excessively.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: This new volume in the excellent "Penguin Lives" series of short biographies represents a new level of achievement in the field of studies about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the Mormons.) Remini is perhaps the leading American scholar on Jacksonian America. He is not a Mormon, but he sees the importance of that people to a larger understanding of American culture. This book is exceptional. Remini is an elegantly plain writer whose prose has obviously been influenced by the sturdy American language of the earlier times to which he has devoted his professional life. The result is an unusually clear, concise and readable account.

Remini has also mastered the very latest and best of Mormon scholarship, rather than depending on the same old shopworn anti-Mormon cliches. And he is a believer in the old-fashioned virtue of objectivity. He can get inside the subjective view of Mormons while retaining the critical intelligence to depict how the same story looks from the outside. This double view produces a portrait of remarkable texture, feel, and resonance. Remini does not attack Smith as a fraud, psychotic, or criminal. Rather he sees the prophet as a not unrepresentative example of his fiercely religious era (and a "decent man.") Smith's story still has powerful appeal to Mormons as myth and epic, and Remini ably conveys this to the reader. It's an amazing story. As the prophet himself said, if it weren't true, no one (including himself) would have believed it could really happen.

Remini puts the Mormons squarely at the heart of American culture. Like Harold Bloom, he sees the Saints as quintessentially American. Of course, this approach can be overdone. The is much in Mormon culture that has echoes of other ancient traditions, as well as much that is absolutely modern. But there would be no Mormonism without America. The new republic was essential for the birth of the new movement. If you are curious about Joseph Smith and the Mormons, this is a great place to start reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Fair Account
Review: This short biography of the man now considered "My Joseph" by author Robert Remini, covering the life and death of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, is a well-researched, even-handed and concise examination of the life of a unique and great American. Drawing from sources as far apart as Joseph Smith's Personal Writings and John C. Bennett's Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism, from scholars across the spectrum such as Fawn Brodie, Richard Bushman and Donna Hill, Remini has synthesized the important historical, biographical and often controversial information to be found about the life of Joseph Smith. The work is brief, as necessitated by the series, and can easily be read in one sitting.
Divided into nine chapters, Remini first introduces the reader to the American political and cultural context of the early 19th century, as the extent, fanaticism and individual, similar occurences to those of Smith during the Second Great Awakening are not a well-known part of his story. Indeed, Mormon readers well versed in the subject matter may find these interjections scattered throughout the book some of the most interesting and challenging material. Here and throughout the rest of the work Remini casually implies that Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and much of what has become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a product of timing, a product of the unique American environment during the nation's infancy. Tracing and lightly touching Smith's ancestry, the author mentions episodes from Smith's adolescence he believes helped shape the character and disposition of later years. Smith's angelic and divine visitations are covered, along with the origins of the Book of Mormon and the beginnings of the Church. The reader is present during the fantastic events of the Church in Kirtland and its near subsequent collapse, for the wars with the old settlers of Missouri and during the flourishing, while controversial, period of Nauvoo and polygamy. The biography closes examining and ultimately denouncing the assassination of Joseph Smith, not as a slain prophet, consistent with the author's non-partisan stance, but as a great American, a victim of a society that bordered on the fringe of lawlessness.

As already mentioned, the book is even-handed and mostly accurate, the occasional detail, a misquotation from the Book of Mormon, for example, excusable for a reputable scholar undertaking this kind of endeavor. Mormons will disagree with some observations while non-Mormons will others. Not uncommon verbage found throughout the book often reads, "Mormons support or agree...while critics point out..." and vice-versa. All readers will find an entreating and page-turning presentation of Joseph Smith the man, innovator, prophet, politician, leader, family man, military leader and American.

"Smith admitted that some accused him of 'pretending to be a Savior, a worker of miracles, etc. All this is false...He is but a man, he said; a plain, untutored man, seeking what he should do to be saved.'"

To readers interested in a similarly unbiased, scholarly appraisal of the Book of Mormon, I would suggest the recent book By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens, a professor of English at the University of Virginia. While Joseph Smith reads like an artistic biography, By the Hand of Mormon scrutinizes the possible origins of the Book of Mormon, internal and external evidences of its veracity, arguments on both sides of the divide and other topics.