At least once a decade, it seems, someone publishes a book about the Latter-day Saints without taking the necessary "trouble" to adequately research the subject...[Such authors] merit the Mormon History Association['s]..."Worst Book" award....Ernest H. Taves, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist with both Mormon and Mennonite roots, would be a strong candidate for the same award this year.
—Kenneth H. Godfrey ^[1]

So much has been written on Nauvoo, John C. Bennett, plural marriage, the Council of Fifty, and the martyrdom—all of which Taves failed to research-- that I wonder just why this book was published. It has very few insights, no innovative interpretations, and no evidence of new documents on the Prophet and the Latter-day Saint movement. It is unfortunate that, at a time when so many really fine studies of Mormonism are appearing, Taves wrote and Prometheus Press published such an inferior study.
—Kenneth H. Godfrey ^[2]