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Richard L. Bushman

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Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling Paperback – March 13, 2007

by Richard Lyman Bushman (Author)

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Founder of the largest indigenous Christian church in American history, Joseph Smith published the 584-page Book of Mormon when he was twenty-three and went on to organize a church, found cities, and attract thousands of followers before his violent death at age thirty-eight. Richard Bushman, an esteemed cultural historian and a practicing Mormon, moves beyond the popular stereotype of Smith as a colorful fraud to explore his personality, his relationships with others, and how he received revelations. An arresting narrative of the birth of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling also brilliantly evaluates the prophet’s bold contributionsto Christian theology and his cultural place in the modern world.

Print length

784 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

March 13, 2007
Dimensions

6.09 x 1.63 x 9.09 inches
ISBN-10

9781400077533
ISBN-13

978-1400077533
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Remarkable. . . . A tale that’s as colorful, suspenseful and unlikely as any in American history...Bushman earns a place for his biography on the very short shelf reserved for books on Mormonism with appeal to initiates and outsiders, too.”—The New York Times Book Review“A fascinating definitive biography. . . . Stirs deeper questions about American religious convictions and how they shape lives and culture.” —The Christian Science Monitor“An exhaustively researched and beautifully written biography of Mormonism’s enigmatic founder.”—Christianity Today"Fascinating. . . .Bushman captures all the harrowing events of Smith's short life, rife with converts and cabals, while meticulously dissecting the revelations that continue to haunt the Smith story." —The Providence Journal“Well-researched and lucidly written. . . . An excellent source for learning about the Mormon faith.” —The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Richard L. Bushman was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1931. He took his B.A., M.A., and PhD. degrees at Harvard University. He has taught at Brigham Young University, Boston University, University of Delaware, and Columbia University, where he is currently Gouverneur Morris Professor of History, Emeritus. His previous books are From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 (1967), Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984), King and People in Provincial Massachusetts (1985), and The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, and Cities (1992).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE JOSEPH SMITH FAMILY

to 1816

My Last request & charge is, that you will Live together in an undivided bond of Love; you are maney of you, and if you Join together as one man, you need not want aney thing; what counsil, what comfort, what money, what friends may you not help your Selves unto, if you will, all as one contribute your aids.

asael smith, “A few words of advice” (1799)

Lucy Mack Smith bade farewell to her sons Joseph and Hyrum a few days after their deaths in June 1844. Joseph’s secretary, Willard Richards, and their brother Samuel had brought the bodies back from Carthage to Nauvoo, and after the corpses were washed and dressed in burial clothes, the Smith family was admitted to the room. “I had for a long time braced every nerve,” their mother wrote,

roused every energy of my soul, and called upon God to strengthen me; but when I entered the room, and saw my murdered sons extended both at once before my eyes, and heard the sobs and groans of my family, and the cries of “Father! Husband! Brothers!” from the lips of their wives, children, brother, and sisters, it was too much, I sank back, crying to the Lord, in the agony of my soul, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family!”

Six months later, Lucy began a narrative of the early life of Joseph Smith. She was sixty-nine, afflicted with disease and saddened by “the cruelty of an ungodly and hard hearted world.” Within a month she had lost three sons: Joseph and Hyrum to vigilante bullets and Samuel to a fever contracted while escaping the mob. Of her seven sons, only the unstable William survived. Her husband, Joseph Sr., had died four years earlier, and she lived with her daughter, another Lucy, and later with Joseph’s widow, Emma, who was carrying her husband’s unborn son.

In this troubled and uncertain moment, the question of the Prophet’s successor remained unsettled. Lucy’s son William was soon to be among the contenders. The “Gentile” countryside expected the Mormon kingdom to crumble and the Saints to disperse. When they proved inconveniently adamant, the citizens forced the Mormons to leave. But trouble did not slow Lucy’s dictation to Martha and Howard Coray through the winter of 1844–45. One crisply told story after another covered the pages, making her narrative the central source for the early life of Joseph Smith.

Lucy Smith reacted to the sorrows and distresses of her life with indignation, not regret. Recollecting the murder of her sons, she wrote that “my blood curdles in my veins.” At the close of the book, she consigned the malicious and indifferent government officials who had darkened her family’s lives—the governors Lilburn W. Boggs, Thomas Carlin, and Thomas Ford, and President Martin Van Buren—to the judgment of God. She was a proud, high-strung woman, belligerent, capable of anger, grief, and sublime confidence in the final triumph of the innocent. She concluded her account with a lofty judgment: “And I shall leave the world to judge, as seemeth them good, concerning what I have written. But this much I will say, that the testimony which I have given is true, and will stand for ever.”

Lucy did not mention the name of Joseph Smith, Jr., until page 56 of her record. As she told the story, no signs or portents accompanied the birth of her most famous son. She said quite simply that “in the meantime we had a son, whom we called Joseph, after the name of his father; he was born December 23, 1805. I shall speak of him more particularly by and by.” Joseph’s revelations and writings, his part in constructing the city of Nauvoo, the tens of thousands of followers, and his national notoriety—none of this overwhelmed Lucy Smith’s story.

The Smith family stood at the center. Lucy’s pride was the pride of family. When she saw the bodies of Hyrum and Joseph, she spontaneously asked why had God “forsaken this family.” Her narrative began with her father, Solomon, and devoted six chapters to her brothers and sisters before telling about herself. Lucy calculated that six Smith martyrs had fallen because of persecution: Joseph Sr.; sons Don Carlos, Hyrum, and Samuel; William’s wife Caroline; and Joseph the Prophet.

She had little worldly to boast of. Lucy knew of the “attention and respect which are ever shown to those who live in fine circumstances,” but of her sister Lydia, who “sought riches and obtained them,” Lucy wrote but two paragraphs: not that Lydia was less loved, “but she seemed to float more with the stream of common events.”7 Lucy’s pride arose from the way her family met adversity. Joseph and Hyrum lay in triumph in their coffins because justice and charity gave them power over their enemies. She honored those who overcame. Her narrative turned the misfortunes of the Smith family into exemplifications of family character.

solomon and lucy mack

Lucy Mack Smith was the youngest of eight children born to Solomon Mack and Lydia Gates. Lucy briefly mentioned her father’s adventures in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, and then said little more about him. He was absent for years at a time while Lucy was growing up, and until he experienced a drastic change of heart late in life, he was preoccupied solely with the pursuit of wealth. Solomon was born September 15, 1732, in Lyme, Connecticut, the grandson of John Mack, one of Lyme’s prospering traders. When Solomon was four, his father, Ebenezer Mack, lost the land he had inherited in Lyme, and Solomon was bound out to a hard-hearted and miserly farmer, about whom he wrote in his memoir:

I was treated by my Master as his property and not as his fellow mortal; he taught me to work, and was very careful that I should have little or no rest. . . . His whole attention was taken up on the pursuits of the good things of this world; wealth was his supreme object. I am afraid gold was his God.

Solomon grew up “like the wild ass’s colt,” feeling “no obligation with regard to society.”

Free at age twenty-one, Solomon Mack tried “to make myself great and happy, in the way I was educated,” by accumulating property. Defeated in one venture after another, wounded by falling trees and spills from horses, afflicted with fits and permanently lame, shipwrecked, betrayed by business associates, he always recovered his health and courage and set forth on new undertakings. He enlisted for service in the French and Indian War and with his discharge pay purchased a farm in Lyme. In 1759, at twenty-six, he married Lydia Gates, daughter of Deacon Daniel Gates in nearby East Haddam. But then, carried away by ambition, he purchased rights to 1,600 acres in New York, freighted a vessel for New York City, and sold his Lyme property to purchase a proprietary right in New Hampshire. By July 8, 1775, when Lucy Mack was born in Gilsum, New Hampshire, Solomon had eight children, had cleared scores of acres and owned hundreds more, risked his capital in a variety of ventures, and yet despite all his efforts, “the Lord would not suffer me to prosper.”

The battle of Bunker Hill took place in Boston three weeks before Lucy’s birth. George Washington’s greatest need was for supplies. Sensing a renewal of the opportunities of the French and Indian War, Solomon learned from his brother-in-law in Connecticut how to make saltpeter for gunpowder and earned a dollar a day teaching the art from town to town. During the Revolution, Solomon was one of seven Gilsum men to enlist in the army. He alternated between enlistments and profit-making enterprises like carting the army’s baggage. In 1778, he signed on with the crew of a privateer.

For fourteen years, Solomon lived at home less than half the time. Instead of satisfying himself with a small farmstead, the traditional base for a household economy, he reached for one handhold after another in the larger economy. After the war he freighted a vessel bound for Liverpool, Nova Scotia, sailed with a fishing schooner, and ended up purchasing it after it was damaged in a hurricane and abandoned. He and a son carried passengers to New London, Connecticut, and conducted a coasting trade between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John, New Brunswick. For four years Solomon heard nothing from his family. Finally around 1788, he returned home with little to show for his exertions. He was fifty-six, and after all his “hard labor and perplexity of mind, I had won nothing.” “The best of my days were past and gone and had to begin entirely anew.” He discovered on his return that Lydia and the children had been turned out of their house in Montague, Massachusetts. A misunderstanding on an old debt from Lyme and the underhanded dealings of one John McCurdy, who fell heir to Solomon’s promissory note, led to the ejection. This news took the heart out of him. “I now thought all was gone, and I did not care whether I lived or died.”

Solomon’s doleful account of his life should not be read as a narrative of failure. He wrote his story after his religious conversion in 1811 to show that God had repeatedly humbled him and taught him the vanity of the world, and yet he had remained deaf to the Lord’s call. Solomon’s purpose required him to emphasize defeat and despair. Although they suffered reverses, the Mack family did not dwell in mean poverty. At various times, they owned farms and houses. Solomon had the capital to purchase land, freight vessels, buy a schooner, and to owe and be owed hundreds of dollars. In 1786, his daughter Lydia married Samuel Bill from one of Gilsum’s prominent families. Solomon’s disappointments never broke his spirit. After lamenting that he cared not whether he lived or died, he reported that “I went to work and shifted from plan to plan till at length I moved to Tunbridge.” Neither failure, old age, nor broken bones defeated him. The significance of Solomon’s account lies less in his actual success or failure in acquiring wealth than in his sense of life as made up of toil, hurt, defeat, and death. Outside of the war episodes, there is no happiness or triumph until the end, when “God did appear for me and took me out of the horrible pit and mirey clay, and set my feet on the rock of Christ Jesus.”

Much of Solomon’s grim endurance passed to his daughter. Lucy measured the early years not by happy friendships or childish adventures but by deaths and illnesses. Her memories, she said, were “engraved upon my heart with a pen of Iron.” When a chance meeting reminded her of her youth, the thought would come to her, “ ‘The friends of my youth! where are they?’ The tomb replies, ‘here are they!’ ” Lucy’s life could be recounted as a series of losses. When she was three, Solomon was carried home half-dead from a falling tree. Later she watched while he suffered from a waterwheel fall and then from bodily fits caused by a blow on the head from a tree limb. Solomon left for Nova Scotia when Lucy was about eight. Soon after, her mother suffered a “severe fit of sickness” and came so near death that, in the absence of Solomon, she assigned eight-year-old Lucy to her brother Stephen for safekeeping. When Lucy was about fourteen, her married sister Lovisa fell ill with consumption, and for five years, either Lovisa or Lovina, a year younger and stricken with the same disease, hovered on the edge of death.

At age sixteen or seventeen Lucy was able to carry Lovina, then twenty-nine, from chair to bed. As Lovina died, she told Lucy of the cold creeping into her fingers and face. A few months later, in 1794, Lovisa’s consumption flared up after a three-year remission. Solomon went at once to South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she lived with her husband, and tried to bring her back to Gilsum, but she died in an inn on the way home. Lucy’s “mournful recital” evoked feelings that “must last while life endures.” In summing up her early life, Lucy spoke only of these illnesses and deaths.

Probably in 1794, when Lucy was nineteen, grief began to prey upon her. “I was pensive and melancholy, and often in my reflections I thought that life was not worth possessing.” Depressed and restless, Lucy sought comfort in religion: “I determined to obtain that which I had heard spoken of so much from the pulpit—a change of heart.” She gave herself to Bible reading and prayer but stumbled over one obstacle. “If I remain a member of no church, all religious people will say I am of the world; and if I join some one of the different denominations, all the rest will say I am in error. No church will admit that I am right, except the one with which I am associated.”

Her father had no answers. At sixty-two, he still sought happiness in an elusive prosperity, the false hope of his faithless upbringing. Lucy’s mother, Lydia, reared in a deacon’s house, joined the Congregational church at age thirty after she married Solomon. He gave her full credit for instructing the children in habits of “piety, gentleness, and reflection,” and for calling them together morning and evening to pray. Lucy said that all of her religious instruction came from her “pious and affectionate” mother.

The Mack children bore her imprint. As Lovina and Lovisa approached death, they warned their hearers to prepare for eternity. The oldest son, Jason, became a lay preacher at twenty, and by the end of his life was practicing faith healings and “holding meetings, day and night, from place to place.” He became a religious seeker before he was sixteen, pursuing the spiritual gifts of early Christianity outside of established churches. Religious currents ran deep in Lucy. She believed that God had healed her sister, Lydia, and her mother, and she solemnly recorded the account of Lovisa’s vision of “the Saviour, as through a veil.” Her sisters’ deaths led her thoughts to eternity, judgment, and the worthlessness of life. But the only mention of a church in Lucy’s childhood reminiscences occurs in the reference to Lovisa after her marriage to Joseph Tuttle. Lucy groped through her depression looking for a church and a change of heart and found nothing. Mack religion was family religion, and nothing outside the family satisfied her.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1400077532
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (March 13, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 784 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781400077533
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400077533
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.82 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.09 x 1.63 x 9.09 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #78,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Craig Matteson

This wonderful biography focuses on what the contemporary records actually tell us.

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2012

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I am very grateful to Richard Bushman for this book. Writing about Joseph Smith invites a storm of criticism because skeptics only want him debunked and believers want their faith supported. Each wants their pre-conceived image of who Joseph was to be proven correct. Bushman takes a strong stance that lets the evidence we have speak for itself, preferably as close to Joseph himself and contemporary witnesses as possible, and tell the story of his life to high scholarly standards.

For me the book read somewhat sparer than a biography that includes anecdotes as if they are history. Many familiar stories that I learned growing up are simply not here. However, relying as much as possible on contemporary accounts and what Joseph himself wrote or said provides a a biography more consistent in its view of Joseph than the books that either extol him or those that tend to attack him and try to debunk him. For example, the famous Brodie biography seemed to me to want Joseph to be both a genius and a dolt, a highly energetic man yet lazy, a crazed believer and a cynical con man, and on and on with similar contradictions. Bushman achieves a more consistent lens on Joseph, despite the complications of the man and his life. I think this is both a great achievement and a real help in trying to understand Joseph. I mean it as high praise for the book when I say that I think that almost everyone who reads this book thoughtfully will take away a broader and deeper conception of who Joseph Smith was and what he did.

Rather than try to recount the book to you I want to share several things that I learned from the book and really value. I could list dozens more, but you can read the book for yourself (which I encourage you to do). Yes, I am a believing member of the LDS Church, but I think the book is intelligent and honest and complete enough to provide interesting and thought provoking material for both the believer and the skeptic and for someone who comes with no knowledge of Joseph at all. Believers will have to consider the complications of the man and his flesh and blood temperament and the misjudgments he made in his life about the people he trusted and some of the actions he took. Skeptics will have to deal with the reality of the man and his achievements. Simply dismissing him as a con man or a crazed visionary will not work because that is not what the actual evidence says. Joseph did not run the Church as the single central figure nor did he turn it into a cult of Joseph Smith.

Bushman showed me the power and genius of the organization of the Church and its balancing mechanisms of being flat with a broadly held male priesthood with a hierarchical leadership with doctrine of keys and how the later addition of women in the operation, governing of the Church, and caring of the needs of the Saints strengthened and enriched it. And while Joseph was the President of the Church and its Prophet and Seer he really did let local leadership govern itself according to the principles taught through the revelations. I think Bushman's focus on the development of the organization and its role in preserving the Church and its ongoing growth after Joseph's murder is spot on and helped deepen my appreciation of its dynamism and adaptability.

I also like the compromise language Bushman achieved in dealing with the realities of the revelations of Joseph Smith. The author always refers to them as Joseph's revelations. For believers, we accept them as revelations from God through Joseph Smith, but I can see them as "Joseph's" in that they were given through him. And skeptics who reject anything divine about the revelations can accept that, whatever they are, Joseph spoke them. I also liked learning how many of the revelations were given in the presence of others in meetings, how matter of fact they were, how they were immediately copied and circulated, and how difficult it was to get them collected and printed for a variety of reasons until we finally got them published as the Doctrine and Covenants.

Another thing I gained a deeper appreciation of was the utter daring and the monumental nature of building the Kirtland Temple so early in the Church's life. Most Mormon congregations (wards) have around 500 members. Kirtland at the time they were building the temple was growing, but only had around 600 members when the project began. I can't fathom taking on such a project with so few people and for a people living in log structures and less it is even more incredible. Yet they built it in that rugged frontier town. I also thought that Bushman handled the sense of the miraculous around the dedication of the temple very sensitively. I also did not realize that when Joseph and Oliver were receiving the visitation of the Savior, Moses, Elijah, and Elias on the altar of the temple that up to 1,000 members were in the temple on the other side of the curtain.

When I was growing up I did not understand clearly how early the Saints arrived in Missouri and how much larger the settlement there was than in Kirtland even though the temple in Kirtland was built and the proposed temple for Zion was not. Bushman also does a good job of giving a clear picture of the dynamics of the persecutions in Missouri and how the growing political power and anti-slavery stance of the Mormons antagonized the locals. The so-called Mormon War is also more critical to the rest of Joseph's life than I had realized.

The constant hounding from Missouri and Joseph having to fear for his life from then on was something I had not truly appreciated. I also think Bushman handles the issue of plural marriage as well as it can be handled. And I think I gained a deeper understanding of John C. Bennett's role in the persecution of the Mormons in Illinois than I had before. I think the actual martyrdom is given a little too light a treatment here, but it is well covered material, and as Bushman notes, a great deal of faith promoting stories have accumulated around that event over the years. And I think he was probably wise in not opening up his book to attacks because he debunked someone's favorite story about Joseph's last days. Just laying out what is actually documented from the time is very helpful.

Even with all the praise I have given, I could heap a great deal more if I had the space and time. But I do want to share an honest perspective I have of the book. It is superior, truly marvelous, from Joseph's early life through the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. That is the zenith of the book. From that point on, while good, the author himself cites difficulty in getting to Joseph directly after that point because his life and the nature of the work of the Church and the lives of the Saints changed. The rest of the book is not as exquisite. Very good, interesting, and informative, but not quite equal to the previous material. It becomes more of a narrative than it had been probably for the reason Bushman cites.

I did find the footnotes and bibliography quite useful. They enriched my reading and sent me on to other reading I found illuminating and will help me in selecting other directions for study for years to come. So, I am especially thankful for the hard work in putting all that material together, as well.

This is a monumental work and a treasure. Read it. Evaluate it for yourself no matter your present attitude or judgments of Joseph Smith. You will have a more considered and informed view for having read it.

And, I don't know why this is in the paperback section. I bought and read the hardcover of the book.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

60 people found this helpful

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Ann

Eliminates Confusion and Fosters Connection

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2012

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When you're a child in Sunday School, the lessons are about the words and miracles of Jesus and his prophets. When we're young or new, we need this information most of all in growing our faith from a tiny seed into a tree. And perhaps this possitive spiritual nurturing is what we need most of the time, throughout our lives.

But we are human -- all of us. And the prophets are human too. The only perfect person to have lived is Jesus. His prophets have all been mere men. Some of them great men, but men nevertheless.

People tend to think that if a man is imperfect, then he cannot truly be a vessel of the Divine. This is a mistake. A closer look at the Bible confirms this. Jonah's disobedience, and his abject hatred of the Ninevites (whom he was sent to save) did not remove his status as a prophet. Abraham's dysfunctional family (including his exile of a wife and young son toward likely death in the desert) did not negate his work as God's chosen prophet. We do not tear the pages of the Psalms from the Bible because they were written by King David, an adulterer and murderer. One can believe or not believe in Joseph Smith's prophetic calling, but it is erronious to use his life as proof. In faith there is no proof but that given to the individual by God.

As we mature from childhood, we learn that the prophets are men. We learn that our faith must be rooted in Christ -- the only perfect being to have lived. Our faith in Christ can be helped by all of the prophets and the messages that they have delivered from God. Many of these men have made great sacrifices in the service of God, and they deserve our graditude. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are not supposed to worship prophets. It would be a mistake to mix up prophets with the God who sent them.

People have lost their faith because of this mistake.

I love "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" because it helped me understand that Joseph Smith was human. I read it at a time when I was ready to understand the nature of a prophet better. I come away from reading it feeling closer to the man, and appreciating his sacrifices as well as his imperfections. I see how he was more like me than I thought. I find gentle humor in some of his foibles, I cringe at his larger mistakes, I feel sympathy for his deep sorrows, and I feel new respect for his remarkable work.

I do believe that the beautiful lessons we learn as children are the most important: God lives. He loves us. He sent his son. Follow Jesus and you will know peace. Pray. Follow the prophets to learn of God's great power and miracles, because he can and will exercize that power for you. This book helps me understand one of those prophets. It helps eliminate confusion. It makes it easier for me to distinguish between the human being and the divine calling. With confusion eliminated, I can focus better on the basics delivered through all prophets. I think those basics are what really matter most.

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Ed & Julie C

Non-Biased Biography. Really amazing read.

Reviewed in Canada on February 17, 2023

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Written by true historians that look at the good, and the mistakes Joseph Smith made. Fascinating!

Cliente Amazon

La mejor biografía sobre Joseph Smith jamás escrito hasta ahora

Reviewed in Spain on May 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Escrito desde un punto de vista neutral, tal como los diferentes fuentes que conocían a Joseph Smith lo describen. Impactante contenido e increíblemente bien investigado.

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César Augusto

Recomendo a todos interessados em Mormonismo.

Reviewed in Brazil on January 15, 2016

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Uma bela fonte de informações sobre Joseph Smith e sobre a fundação da Igreja Sud.Este autor é bem conhecido quando o assunto é Joseph Smith.Indico este livro a qualquer pessoa inclusive a membros da igreja que estejam atrás de informações de Joseph Smith e história da igreja,recomendo também o livro No Man Knows My History:The Life of Joseph Smith .

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Christian Wolfert

Hervorragende Joseph-Smith-Biografie

Reviewed in Germany on June 22, 2015

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Das Buch hat mich in jeder Hinsicht positiv beeindruckt. Sehr gründlich recherchiert gibt Bushman einen ungeschönten Blick auf die Vergangenheit der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage und insbesondere auf die Geschichte ihres Gründers, Joseph Smith Jr. Er versteigt sich nicht in haltlose oder den Glauben anzweifelnde Spekulationen, wirft aber einen durchaus kritischen Blick auf fragwürdige Umstände, welche er den damaligen Umständen angepasst entsprechend interpretiert, was es für den heutigen Leser einfacher macht, sie angemessen einzuordnen. Hervorzuheben sind hier insbesondere die Ausführungen zur Übersetzung des Buches Mormon und zum Thema Polygamie. Insgesamt hatte ich als gläubiger Mormone das Gefühl, den Menschen Joseph Smith besser kennenzulernen und mehr Verständnis für seine Komplexitäten zu haben. Auch bin ich durch die Lektüre in der Überzeugung gestärkt worden, dass Joseph Smith, trotz aller Unzulänglichkeiten und Fehler, ein von Gott erwählter Mann war, nicht unähnlich Paulus aus dem Neuen Testament.

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PETER J VOUSDEN

A definitive biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2013

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I've not only read this book through but use it as a reference time and again. This is with out doubt the best biography of Joseph Smith I have read. I am a believer and Mormon enthusiast and also a history graduate and enthusiast. I don't accept this book is a 'warts and all' biography - it's just a biography. All biographies give an account of a person's life and no person, save Christ himself, has lived an unblemished life. Bushman brings Joseph Smith to life as a man of terrific energy and courage. I think I can distinguish a proper history book from a hagiography and Bushman's book is the former. Having said that, I declare this volume has deepened my love for Joseph Smith. Bushman recognises that few people are neutral about Smith. People tend to love him or hate him. Rough Stone Rolling has deepened my love for him.

Bushman's particular expertise is in American cultural history and Rough Stone Rolling certainly places Joseph Smith, his family, friends and enemies in the context of their cultural surroundings better than anything else I've ever read. If prospective readers are put off by the notion of religion and religious leaders I would urge them to try Rough Stone Rolling as a valuable history book about nineteenth century America.

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