Fawn McKay Brodie byla biografie a profesorka historie, která se proslavila svými psychobiografiemi. Její práce často zkoumala životy významných osobností, jako byli Thomas Jefferson a Joseph Smith, a snažila se proniknout do jejich motivací a vnitřního světa pomocí freudovské psychologie. Brodie byla známá svým neortodoxním přístupem, který často vyvolával kontroverze, ale také znovu objevoval zapomenuté aspekty historie a uváděl je do povědomí veřejnosti. Její styl psaní byl oceňován pro svou hloubku a schopnost vtáhnout čtenáře do komplexních životních příběhů.
The first paperback edition of the classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this book attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them? 24 pages of photos. Map.
"Brilliant. . . . [Brodie's] scholarship is wide and searching, and her understanding of Burton and his wife both deep and wide. She writes with clarity and zest. The result is a first class biography of an exceptional man."--J. H. Plumb, New York Times Book Review
An ambitious, perceptive portrayal of a complex man, this best-selling biography broke new ground in its exploration of Jefferson's inner life. Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love-ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political writing and his decision making. The portrait that results adds a whole new depth to those of the past.