I almost am finished with Brodie's book...

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

A telling admission. Clearly you have not read it.

Her other biographies were well received in their day. It's not that common that books remain forever in print. The Jefferson biography is still cited as being the first to show that Jefferson had chidren by Sally Hemmings.

To "show" he fathered such children or to resurrect the claims made in his day of same?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Newell Bringhurst's 1996 book "Revisiting No Man Knows My History" is the best book on the subject I've ever read.

I agree with Archaea's critique of her tendency to play mind reader. I thought it was a worthwhile read, though.

Newell Bringhurst is fair in his assessement. All who demonize Brody and consider themselves fair and balanced by nature should read it.

Hey, take the mind reading part for what it's worth; that's all she expected you to do. Anyway, it's not a major part of her book. Have you read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich? What about Shirer's mind reading of Hitler, even of the collective German people? It's not that revolutionary to do this. It's not like the mind reading was not based on any facts. It's an easy thing to attack but it's going for the capillary.

You're in the minority if you don't think Nibley's critique was awful.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Yes, but other historians, one at the University of Nevada Reno resoundedly rejects that premise, and the DNA evidence is far from conclusive.

UNR, now there's a great institution.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by creekster

To "show" he fathered such children or to resurrect the claims made in his day of same?

Okay, she demonstrated it.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by creekster

I have read Brodie's book and I agree it is a good read, but I also think she too often goes out on a limb and my problem with it is that she fails to make sure the reader knows when she is going out on a limb and when she isn't. Her extrapolations are rather remarkable and frequently untenable.

You are presenting the precise reason I think most active LDS dislike Brodie's book. She writes very well. She researched very well. She could have used her writing to inform her research in several different ways and she chose (perhaps of honest consicence perhaps not, I have no idea) to pursue the path that was most difficult for the church. This came at a time when the church in Utah was beginning to reach out to the greater world and the book undermined some support for those efforts, I think. If she wrote poorly, then no one would care. If she wasn't a woman, fewer people would ahve noticed, I think, at the time that book was published about this church. Becasue she is a wmaon with writing skill her book obtained a degree of visibility that annoyed supporters of the church becasue it was publicized in ways that the gosepl can't be and becasue it tended to reinforce the negative stereotypes that so many had of LDS culture and theology and its origins all while parading as fact when it is a mixture of fiction and fact with no clear line ever drawn (not unlike the Memorisa of Hadrian).

Well then I guess I must be the only one who found her story telling ponderous. I admit I did not finish it. As soon as I saw her going off on tangents, I started rolling my eyes, stating, oh crap, her comes the psychoanalysis bullshit I hate with historians.

Quote me some of her meaningful prose to show me I err.

If a man of no notoriety and no connection to Church leadership had written it, if it had been published, it would not still be in print is my point.

If I want to have somethiing last against the Church,

I write it as a woman, I stated I know President Hinckley, and he's my uncle,

and voila, I get instant notoriety.

A lesser example is the whacko daughter of Nibley, who is resoundedly rejected by her siblings, but she is female, now a lesbian (counterculturalist appeal) and makes wild ass accusations about recovered memory.

Well recovered memory and psychoanalytical history by a NON psychiatrist just doesn't ever float well with me. And recovered memories haven't been shown to be reliable.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

What about Shirer's mind reading of Hitler, even of the collective German people? It's not that revolutionary to do this. It's not like the mind reading was not based on any facts. It's an easy thing to attack but it's going for the capillary.

Yes and that was a weakness of that work as well.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

UNR, now there's a great institution.

Well he got his Phd from somewhere back east, Georgetown, or some other lousy eastern college. Actually, I believe he got it at the University of Virginia, probably not one of which you approve.

[All-American]

I admit, I've not read Brodie's book cover to cover, though I have read a significant chunk of it. It just seemed that she already had a set notion of what Joseph Smith was all about, and was going to find whatever facts she needed to make the story work. (Like I said before-- even Mormons do this, and frankly, to a much greater degree.)

The greatest fault of Nibley's criticism isn't that it was incorrect, but heartless-- he felt no shame in ridiculing the woman. This probably makes him guilty of the same crime as Brodie, but with two advantages: one, his is a much shorter work; and two, it is a lot funnier.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Quisqueyano

I posted the link to Nibleys critique. He wrote a preface to it 13 years after it's initial publication. He admits his first critiques was a bit hasty. Only to point out that with the passing of years, the actual lack of scholarship by Ms. Brodie was even more egregious.

Now I'm laughing out loud, at the irony. Brody was a tenured professor of history at UCLA, a world-class university. That's a dinstinction that was well beyond Nibly's reach. Whatever the status today of her biographies other than No Man (which I think we've established is a mainstream classic), when they were published they were well received and she made a lot of money selling many copies of them. That's the most any author can expet in his/her lifetime. Who knows what future generations will think of them? Outside the Church, nobody would call what Nibly wrote "scholarship." Honestly, he's considered a nut job, outside the Church.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Now I'm laughing out loud, at the irony. Brody was a tenured professor of history at UCLA, world-class university. That's a dinstinction that was well beyond Nibly's reach. Whatever the status today of her biographies other than No Man which I think we've established is a mainstream classic), when they were published they were well received and she made a lot of money selling many copies of them. That's the most any author can expet in his/her lifetime. Who knows what future generations will think of them. Outside the Church, nobody would call what Nibly wrote "scholarship." Honestly, he's considered a nut job, outside the Church.

What do you expect? He admitted he believed that God appeared to Joseph Smith. If you can't accept or overlook that premise, which would have been especially difficult given Nibley's insistance on the point, what else would you think of him?