Two recent books, Joseph Smith, by Robert V. Remini, and Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Will Bagley, each present fresh, illuminating insights into their subjects. But each work also suffers from significan’t shortcomings that illuminate what I call “the biographer’s burden,” the responsibility to treat personalities, motivations, and deeds in all their complexity.

Newell G. Bringhurst, Will Bagley