John G. Turner

Author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, the biography of Brigham Young that Kyle read in 2020. Turner’s account is noted for its willingness to register both Young’s institutional accomplishments and the durable problems he set in motion — Kyle’s takeaways credit Turner with an honest treatment that resists the smoothing-over of later Church narrative, including the observation that “much of Joseph’s policy in temporal things was different from my ideas” and the reframing of the handcart episode as a preventable institutional failure rather than heroic suffering.

Context: John G. Turner is a historian of American religion (Professor at George Mason University). His Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012) won several awards and is regarded as a leading modern scholarly biography of the second president of the LDS Church.

Where this appears

• Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet — author of the biography; Kyle’s reading credits Turner’s even-handed treatment of Young’s accomplishments and inherited problems.