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William B Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet
As the younger brother of the Mormon Prophet, William B. Smith was one of the most colorful characters in LDS history. After making extensive efforts as a missionary, and being appointed a member of the original Quorum of Twelve Apostles and Church Patriarch, simmering tensions between him and his fellow apostles boiled over, and he was excommunicated in a dramatic break with Brigham Young and the main body of Mormons in October 1845. After leaving the Church, William affiliated with who’s who list of notable Mormon dissidents before eventually linking himself with the Reorganized Church, which was led by his nephew Joseph Smith III. This is the first full-length published biography of William B. Smith.
653 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 12, 2018
We read this together for our couples' study. We picked it because Joseph Smith had a lot of trouble with this sibling, and we were both having trouble with a sibling, and thought it would be a good idea to get some ideas for how to resolve sibling conflict from the real-life experiences of the Prophet.
It turns out that William was kind of a jerk and a mess and Joseph never had a very functional relationship with him. So this was not actually helpful in that respect--in fact, by the time we were done reading this (it took almost 2 years), we were both rather estranged from our respective siblings.
But the book was excellent in terms of shedding light on William's life. The one major flaw is that it was clear the author wrote a couple of really excellent journal articles on William, then expanded into a book, but covered the same information in other chapters, so some of it got really and unnecessarily repetitive. It really pulled the quality down, in what was otherwise an excellent work of history. Better, more thorough editing and revision would have gone a long way for this book.
It turns out that William was kind of a jerk and a mess and Joseph never had a very functional relationship with him. So this was not actually helpful in that respect--in fact, by the time we were done reading this (it took almost 2 years), we were both rather estranged from our respective siblings.
But the book was excellent in terms of shedding light on William's life. The one major flaw is that it was clear the author wrote a couple of really excellent journal articles on William, then expanded into a book, but covered the same information in other chapters, so some of it got really and unnecessarily repetitive. It really pulled the quality down, in what was otherwise an excellent work of history. Better, more thorough editing and revision would have gone a long way for this book.
September 20, 2020
One of the best biographies I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews