10-02-2005, 08:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Snow@Oct 1 2005, 06:51 PM
I've been waiting three years for this:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,615154339,00.html
Richard Bushman, one of America's best historians has finished his major biography on Joseph Smith:
Like any historian worth his salt, Richard Bushman was determined early on to write about Joseph Smith's life "warts and all."
* * * "I didn't want to cover up anything," he said by phone from his New York apartment. "I purposely sought to deal with all the problems, trying always to see things as Joseph saw them. I wanted to be empathetic, because that's what readers want."
* * * Bushman's historical philosophy was strictly applied to "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" (Knopf, 730 pages, $35), his work on the Mormon prophet. "I wanted to write a book in which Joseph could recognize himself.
* * * "I once told a graduate student that I do it this way because I might meet this person in the afterlife. You have to write the book thinking the subject is in the room."
* * * In fact, Bushman has written what is likely to be considered the definitive biography of Joseph Smith for many years to come.
* * * "I liked the rolling part — a man in motion," Bushman said. "I also liked the rough stone. He knew he was rough and didn't pretend otherwise. I once wrote a book on gentility ('The Refinement of America'), and Joseph saw the artificiality of gentility. He didn't like Martin Van Buren (the U.S. president in the 1830s) because he was prissy and Joseph was rugged, and he felt more authentic."
[snapback]77127[/snapback]
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I hear it is a book of controversy..
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