I very much enjoyed the biography of Brigham Young which was part of the A&E Biography series. It was engaging, well-researched, and provides an interesting perspective on LDS history. If there was a defining moment in the production, I would say it came when they showed an impressive array of U.S. stamps commemorating American frontiersmen, and then Jan Shipps said, with a smile, that Brigham Young was not to be found among them. That ties directly into their theme that Brigham Young was a man of both compassion and great organizational ability. They returned to this point several times as they sketched LDS history in broad outline.

The take on Joseph Smith was perhaps not especially flattering, but he was represented as a man without good judgement in areas of economics or what we would now call mangement. When I started to write this, I was going to say that the picture of Joseph Smith was somewhat negative, but now I am not so sure. Naturally, the focus was on Brigham Young, so little was said about the first years of the church, and naturally Joseph's prophetic role wasn't greatly emphasized, and yet I believe it was a very reasonable and balanced portrait. Conversely, Young was not represented as much as a leader of the faith as he was a frontiersmen. Again, this is in many way appropriate. Several statements were made to the effect that he was wont to use extreme rhetoric and was very outspoken, but few details were given.

One thing I found surpising was that in discussing polygamy they went into Young's initial struggles with the doctrine. If anything, one could say that the piece was almost too apologetic in tone here -- or was it? No, I think it was a balanced, faithful representation of our history.

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Gregory Woodhouse     gjw@best.com
home page:            http://www.best.com/~gjw/
resource page:        http://www.webcom.com/~gjw1/resource/