his treasure seeking for hire- to his father, and he seems too want to wish away the trial record concerning Smith's criminal trial. For example, Bushman tries to shift some of the moral blame for Smith's divining activities- i.e. It often seeks to undermine, though not explicitly, much of the historical case put together by Fawn Broadie, whose No Man Knows My History has stood the test of time. More importantly, it is a work of apologetics- not in the pejorative sense, but in the scholarly sense. That being said, this book doesn't always read well, even for a history book. It goes without saying that Bushman is an excellent historian whose expertise concerned the region and period from which the Mormon religion arose. The Book of Mormon is just too complex and incredible of a story for him to have written. It's just hard NOT to believe in him compared with the alternative. Despite all of the threats, abuse and hard times, Joseph never once backed down from his story though he did not gain too many worldly glories during his day to make it worth it (from the world's view). It made me realize that Joseph was a human, just like the rest of us-he was young and poor and hadn't quite comprehended the life God had chosen for him just yet, not that anything he did was too terrible-just blown out of proportion. This story only goes through Joseph's early years and up to the start of the church, but I really liked all of the history, especially the "touchy" subjects including Joseph's much criticized "gold digging days". For one who often struggles with faith (me), this was a fantastic read. The first few chapters are painful.a lot of back history on the Smith and Mack families, but once into Joseph's family it is a great book.
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