Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life, 2nd ed.
$34.95
Available September 22, 2026 in print and ebook. Preorder today! (Ebook links coming soon.)
2000 Best Biography Award,
Mormon History Association
2000 Best Book Award,
John Whitmer Historical Association
- “As a historian and biographer, Fawn Brodie was an original: insightful and thoroughly contentious. Her story needed to be told, and Newell Bringhurst delivered the goods. The reissue of his diligently crafted, honest and authoritative treatment is as thought-provoking now as when it was first published.” — Andrew Burstein
- “An essential look into one of Mormon history’s most compelling scholars.” — Nancy Ross
- “A compelling portrait of a complex independent thinker who challenged religious orthodoxy and transformed the craft of biography.” — Brian C. Hales
- “Bringhurst unlocks both the strengths and limitations of Brodie's approach to biography and cogently explains why subsequent generations of scholars still return to her insights." — John G. Turner
- “This biography remains a critical key to understanding a woman whose intellectual productivity was inflected with pain and controversy. A compelling read that brings Brodie to a new generation of readers.” — Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Book Description:
The second edition of Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer’s Life reintroduces readers to one of America’s most influential and controversial biographers. Historian Newell G. Bringhurst explores the remarkable career of Fawn McKay Brodie, whose groundbreaking works transformed modern historical writing. Raised within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brodie rose to national prominence through bold biographies of figures such as Joseph Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Nixon, and Thaddeus Stevens. Bringhurst reveals how her fearless scholarship challenged traditional interpretations of history and permanently influenced the craft of biography. At the same time, he presents a deeply personal portrait of Brodie as a devoted wife, mother, and determined intellectual who endured criticism and controversy in her pursuit of historical truth. Readers gain insight into her struggles within academia, her marriage to strategist Bernard Brodie, and the personal sacrifices behind her extraordinary literary career.
This expanded edition also highlights Brodie’s lasting influence on modern scholarship and public understanding of American history. Bringhurst demonstrates how historians continue to engage with her interpretations, particularly her once-controversial arguments concerning Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, many of which later gained wider acceptance through new evidence and scholarship. While acknowledging criticism of Brodie’s psychohistorical methods, Bringhurst offers a balanced and thoughtful assessment of her achievements, showing why her work remains both influential and widely debated. Beautifully written and richly researched, Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer’s Life is more than a biography—it is a compelling study of intellectual courage, historical interpretation, and the enduring power of storytelling. Complete with a new foreword and additional essays, this second edition confirms Brodie’s place as one of the twentieth century’s most daring and significant biographers.
Praise for Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life:
“As a historian and biographer, Fawn Brodie was an original: insightful and thoroughly contentious. Her story needed to be told, and Newell Bringhurst delivered the goods. The reissue of his diligently crafted, honest and authoritative treatment is as thought-provoking now as when it was first published.” — Andrew Burstein, Charles P. Manship Professor of History (emeritus), Louisiana State University and author of Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History
“Newell G. Bringhurst’s second edition of Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer’s Life offers an essential look into one of Mormon history’s most compelling scholars. As a well-worn fixture on my own bookshelf, this updated volume brilliantly captures Brodie’s legacy, provocative interpretations, and enduring impact on American biography. It is a must-read that will undoubtedly inspire further research into one of the founding mothers of New Mormon History.” — Nancy Ross, associate professor at Utah Tech University and co-author of Mormon Garments: Sacred and Secret
“This important reprint opens a window into the life of Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith’s most influential—and controversial—biographer. Through meticulous archival research, interviews, and Brodie’s personal papers, Bringhurst crafts a compelling portrait of a complex independent thinker who challenged religious orthodoxy and transformed the craft of biography.” — Brian C. Hales, author of Joseph Smith's Polygamy
“Forty-five years after her death and over eighty years after her first published biography, Fawn McKay Brodie still influences our perception of American history and biography. And it appears Fawn Brodie’s importance will continue for the foreseeable future. One must understand the biographer in order to understand the biography, and Newell G. Bringhurst’s perceptive and award-winning Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life masterfully brings the master biographer to life with his sympathetic, in-depth study.” — Craig L. Foster, author of Penny Tracts and Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Anti-Mormon Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837–1860
“A great book is getting a new life! An invaluable feature of this new edition is a thorough survey of the subsequent historiography of each of Brodie’s biographical subjects. For the most part, Bringhurst concludes, Brodie’s interpretations have held up remarkably well.” — Gary Topping, author of Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History
“Fawn Brodie was ahead of her time. Entering the scene of Mormon historiography at a time when all sides wrote polemically, she chose data, rather than dogma, to be her guiding star. She dug where other historians had not and produced a biography of Joseph Smith that has never been out of print since its publication over eighty years ago. But her timing was off, through no fault of her own, and No Man Knows My History was too much for leaders of a less mature church to tolerate. And so, they expelled her from her tribe. If No Man had been published today, it likely wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. Such is the sea change in Mormon historiography.
“In publishing this second edition, Newell Bringhurst informs a new generation of readers of the remarkable scholarship, coupled with the equally remarkable prose, that keeps No Man in the very short list of must-read Mormon biographies.” — Gregory A. Prince, Medical researcher and independent historian whose books include David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism"Newell Bringhurst gives Fawn Brodie her due in this penetrating intellectual portrait. Bringhurst unlocks both the strengths and limitations of Brodie's approach to biography and cogently explains why subsequent generations of scholars still return to her insights." — John G. Turner, author of Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet
“Updated with an engaging preface that further explores the life of Brodie and her work, this biography remains a critical key to understanding a woman whose intellectual productivity was inflected with pain and controversy. A compelling read that brings Brodie to a new generation of readers.” — Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Richard Lyman Bushman Professor of Mormon Studies, The University of Virginia
“In his new foreword, Newell Bringhurst takes on the difficult task of providing comprehensive historiographical treatment of recent biographical studies of Joseph Smith Jr. from within the church history community. But he also provides clear treatment of biographical scholarship in the broader history community. This trail-blazes an exciting new pathway for Latter-day Saint historians to follow. Readers will find this a significant addition to Bringhurst’s landmark biography of Fawn Brodie.” — Mark A. Scherer, Community of Christ historian, (Ret.)
“In this fine biography Bringhurst makes the strong case that Fawn Brodie remains relevant well into the twenty-first century. Her books on Nixon, Jefferson and of course Joseph Smith still call to readers because Brodie’s work packed a punch. Bringhurst shows us why.” — Matthew Bowman, Howard W Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University
“Newell G. Bringhurst’s Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer’s Life has been out of print for several years, but with its welcome republication by Greg Kofford Books, readers will be richly rewarded by Bringhurst’s careful, meticulous scholarship. He probes why her biographies of Joseph Smith and Thomas Jefferson sparked such controversy and examines how Brodie became one of America’s most popular biographers—despite lacking formal training as a historian. Yet the book covers far more than just her literary career: Bringhurst adeptly explores Brodie’s private life with her husband and children, as well as the bitter rift with her extended family following the 1945 publication of No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. In my view, Bringhurst’s biography is one of the finest ever written about an influential Mormon writer. Bravo to Kofford Books for bringing it back into print!” — Matthew L. Harris, author of Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality
“The reprinting of Newell Bringhurst’s classic biography of Fawn Brodie is a welcome event. Bringhurst’s insightful book was one of the earliest scholarly biographies of a woman who grew up in Mormon-Utah culture. Though Brodie didn’t have the advantage of an open LDS archives, and the decades of publication on Joseph Smith since No Man Knows My History was published, it is one of the most readable and gracefully written Mormon biographies. It made some mistakes, but this can only be expected in a pioneering book. Bringhurst’s biography puts Brodie in the context of both the Mormon and the broad American historical tradition. His introduction to this reprinting is a fascinating overview of biographies on Joseph Smith following No Man, and also on responses to her books on Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon.” — Todd M. Compton
About the Author:
Newell G. Bringhurst is Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. He is the author and editor of multiple volumes, including Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism, Black and Mormon, and Excavating Mormon Pasts: The New Historiography of the Last Half Century. Bringhurst is past president of both the Mormon History Association and the John Whitmer Historical Association. He lives in Visalia, California, with his wife.
More Information:
400 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-58958-852-3
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