Long before Fawn Brodies book No Man Knows My History, other historians had undertaken to create histories of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This book examines historical issues that have been ignored by LDS Church historians and contains facts that the church has attempted to ignore. This book reviews some of the early objections to the Book of Mormon, inconsistencies in the claims to angelic visitation, the whole process of how power was structured in the church and used to gain advantages for the men—who sought to tie themselves closer to the Prophet in order to gain social status, and even multiple "spiritual wives".

The book even examines the controversy over the censoring and destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and the issues that the members of the First Presidency had with polygamy, financial transparency and impropriety in the early church. This book also addresses the reasons that the Mormons left Kirtland, OH, why they were expelled from Missouri, and also eventually from Nauvoo, IL.

Anyone interested in the version of LDS church history that has not gone through the filters of the correlation committee of the Corporation of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would be well served by this book. It is helpful to finally understand why the church claims to have undergone constant persecution, and it is important to understand why 20 percent or more of early church members eventually left the church altogether.