Biography shows the real Joseph Smith

JOSEPH SMITH: ROUGH STONE ROLLING, by Richard Lyman Bushman, Knopf, 730 pages, $35.

Joseph Smith, the LDS prophet, once characterized himself as "a rough stone rolling down the hill. The sound of the hammer and chisel was never heard on me nor never will be. I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone."

No wonder Richard Bushman decided to include "rough stone" in the title of his new book.

The eminent Harvard-educated historian and author of several highly-acclaimed prize-winning works — including "From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765" — is also the author of "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling," a splendid cultural biography. In spite of many attempts by historians and religious-history buffs to capture the life of Joseph Smith, no one has come close to re-creating a full and satisfying portrait until Bushman.

A committed Mormon who is determined to write history with complete documentation and honesty of interpretation, Bushman, who grew up in Oregon, is an important national figure. He began his teaching career at Brigham Young University before moving on to Boston University, the University of Delaware and Columbia University, where he is a professor emeritus.

That makes him fit the famous Wallace Stegner analogy: "The Westerner must go away and get his eyes opened and then look back."

There is still no promise of objectivity here. As Bushman says in his preface, "For a character as controversial as Smith, pure objectivity is impossible. What I can do is to look frankly at all sides of Joseph Smith, not ducking any of the problems. Covering up flaws makes no sense in any case. Most readers do not believe in, nor are they interested in, perfection. Flawless characters are neither attractive nor useful. We want to meet a real person."

That is what Bushman gives us. The Joseph he portrays made major mistakes — such as the Kirtland Bank fiasco, the selection of convert John C. Bennett (a scoundrel) to act as mayor of Nauvoo and head of the Nauvoo Legion, his unsuccessful attempt to keep polygamy from his wife, Emma, his tendency to roundly scold the people closest to him, his tendency toward boastfulness — and other situations that occasionally call into question the soundness of his judgment.