New Brigham Young Biography

[_Joe Geisner]

Benchmark Books is having their author sighing n Thursday with John Turner. So for you folks in the SLC area have a wonderful opportunity. My understanding is Bryan Buchanan will be recording the session and putting it on youtube. This is a real treat by the Benchmark people.

Spend An Evening with An Author
Brigham Young - Turner cover

We are pleased to announce that John Turner, author of the recently-published Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, will be at our store on Thursday, September 13, to speak about the book and sign copies. He will be here at 5:30 pm to sign and will begin speaking at 6:00. We hope you will stick around afterwards to enjoy some refreshments and have another opportunity to get your book signed and visit with Turner.

While previous accounts of Brigham Young’s life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical exposé, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion. After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic, treasonous heretic. Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857, and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young’s tenacity and faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West, imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his church and the American Mountain West. Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet is a landmark of balanced scholarship and evidences a refreshingly open approach to Mormon biography. It is certain to become a standard by which future accounts of the life of Brigham Young will be judged.

Turner's treatment of the complex Brigham Young is unsentimental, cogent, critical, and fair. It takes its place alongside Leonard Arrington's magisterial American Moses as the essential, mutually challenging portraits of one of America's greatest colonizers and religious figures.
--Philip L. Barlow, Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University

John G. Turner is assistant professor of religious studies at George Mason University. He initially considered a survey of post-World War II Mormonism but found himself drawn to the earlier period. He spent several summers in Salt Lake City for research purposes and developed warm relationships with the staff at the Church History Library who were extremely accommodating with his requests for sources.



Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012). 500 pp. Hardcover. Reg $35.00, SALE $31.50.

Shipping: Media Mail: $4.50 for the first book, $1.00 for each additional

Priority/FedEx/UPS options available—inquire for details

Utah residents—please add 7.05% tax

[_Fence Sitter]

If you want to save a few bucks and can wait to have it delivered, Amazon is selling it for $19.56 + shipping ($4.00 or free is you have Amazon Prime).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Brigham+Young%3A+Pioneer+Prophet%2C

[_Kishkumen]

If you want to save a few bucks and can wait to have it delivered, Amazon is selling it for $19.56 + shipping ($4.00 or free is you have Amazon Prime).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Brigham+Young%3A+Pioneer+Prophet%2C

Thanks, FS! I bought my copy.

[_MCB]

The review seems to indicate that the book doesn't just start in Utah. How much of it is 1839-1849? (His rise to power)

Considering buying it.

My vacation from writing is just about over.

[_Stormy Waters]

The review seems to indicate that the book doesn't just start in Utah. How much of it is 1839-1849? (His rise to power)

Considering buying it.

My vacation from writing is just about over.

Roughly the first 170 pages are in that time period. For what it's worth.

[_Joe Geisner]

As I continue to read the book by John Turner, even with intense pain and lots of pains pills, I am convinced this book is far superior to any biography we have seen in some time in the Mormon historical community.

I think John captures Young better than Bushman captures Smith, Arriington captures Young, Givens and Grow capture Pratt, Prince captures McKay and Kimball captures SWK.

I find this particularly impressive since Young is far more complicated than McKay, Kimball or Pratt and equal in complexity with Smith. And John Turner pulls it off and gives us a Young who we can understand and not easily dismiss. It should be every Mormon's responsibility to read Turner's book so that they can understand what Mormonisms foundation looks like.

Just so people know, Arrington did not write American Moses. It was written by committee, with Arrington doing the editing. When you read the book, it explains a lot.

[_why me]

I am a bit confused by Julie's comment "I have serious reservations about recommending it to the average church member"

I keep going back to Juanita Brooks and Leonard Arrington's ideal that only the truth of our past is good enough to be taught and read. to Church members. Is Julia suggesting that Church members are incapable of handing the truth of our past and its leaders?

It is also being sold in Deseret Bookstore. obviously the managers of Deseret believe that the members can handle it.

[_Cicero]

Just so people know, Arrington did not write American Moses. It was written by committee, with Arrington doing the editing. When you read the book, it explains a lot.

I never knew that. That does explain a great deal. Do you know why it wasn't properly credited as such (like "Story of the Latter-day Saints")?

[_Blixa]

Just got my copy and did a quick read through of sections that interest me most. I liked how these events were handled. I also found a photo of BY I had not seen before (it may be widely known and I've just missed it), and that was also interesting.

All in all, looks good and I can't wait to dig in.

[_Quasimodo]

Just got my copy and did a quick read through of sections that interest me most. I liked how these events were handled. I also found a photo of BY I had not seen before (it may be widely known and I've just missed it), and that was also interesting.

All in all, looks good and I can't wait to dig in.

Thanks Blixa! Any chance of a scan of that BY image? You know I'm a visual guy.