I am in the process of reading the whole thing. It appears to be a very objective, non morg view of mormon history.

This is a great find and reference! Thanks!

Apparently the "computer ate my homework" on a post I thought I put up here reviewing some of the facts contained in this book (I'm doubtful it was pulled since the only individual I "attacked" was Brigham Young).

I didn't see the 1901 publication date, or I might've been a little more charitable (which is why I'm not going to rewrite my analysis), but just looking over the parts of the book I did it looks to me like the author didn't consult the old Salt Lake Tribune much (too "anti"?), which I think is a mistake.

Here are a couple...

>With some reenforcements from the south, the Indians now numbered about four hundred. They shot down some seventy head of the emigrants' cattle, and on Wednesday evening made another attack in force on the camp, but were repulsed. Still another attack the next morning had the same result. This determined resistance upset the plans of the Mormons who had instigated the Indian attacks. They had expected that the travellers would be overcome in the first surprise, and that their butchery would easily be accounted for as the result of an Indian raid on their camp. But they were not to be balked of their object.

Probably way too many Indians and not enough Mormons, and there's the small matter that the Indians in Southern Utah had perhaps five rifles, total, among all of their tribal bands...

>If we accept Lee's plausible theory that, at his second trial, the church gave him up as a sop to justice, and loosened the tongues of witnesses against him, this makes that part of the testimony in confirmation of Lee's statement, elicited from them, all the stronger.

No kidding... And...

>Major (afterward General) Carlton, returning from California in 1859, where he had escorted a paymaster, passed through Mountain Meadows, and, finding many bones of the victims still scattered around, gathered them, and erected over them a cairn of stones, on one of which he had engraved the words: "Here lie the bones of 120 men, women, and children from Arkansas, murdered on the 10th day of September, 1857." In the centre of the cairn was placed a beam, some fifteen feet high, with a cross-tree, on which was painted: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it." It was said that this was removed by order of Brigham Young.

That's a pretty tame description of the monument destruction and desecration that took place as BY watched after raising his arm to the square...

My analysis? Some reasonably sophisticated "popular history" of the time (which Mormons would still accuse of being biased), but LDS History is such a complex and nuanced issue that most outsiders miss some of the more fascinating intricacies...

I found this:

http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Mormons/00000053.htm

<quote>
No Mormon ever concedes that proof of Smith's personal failings affects his character as a prophet. A Mormon doctor, with whom Caswall argued at Nauvoo, said that Smith might be a murderer and an adulterer, and yet be a true prophet. He cited St. Peter as saying that, in his time, David had not yet ascended into heaven (Acts ii. 34); David was in hell as a murderer; so if Smith was "as infamous as David, and even denied his own revelations, that would not affect the revelations which God had given him."
<endquote>

That is just as true today as it was then: the fact that Smith was a revolting, vulgar, skirt-chasing worm doesn't penetrate the mormon psyche.

What manner of Creator would rely upon such? The mormon Creator, of course ...