I had to dig my copy out of storage to give myself a quick reminder, and no, it’s not a book I’d strongly recommend. That said I only have the 1985 edition, not the 2010 reworking.

Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon is primarily not a broad overview of Smith or the LDS Church. It’s a dive into a single question, covering a fairly short period in Smith’s life and doesn’t even cover the church founding.

On top of that it forwards a theory that is largely discounted by historians today. No one today really seriously thinks that Ethan Smith or View of the Hebrews played a significant role in the development of the Book of Mormon. Aside from the Jews in America thesis, the books don’t have a lot in common. And Jews in America was a fairly popular theory in early 19th century America.

At this point pretty much the dominant theory of Book of Mormon authorship is, Joseph Smith wrote it drawing on personal experiences, lifting passages from the Bible, while mimicking a number of other contemporary works. If View influenced Mormonism at all, it was likely just by contributing to a general melange of 19th century literature. It is worth mentioning though, there is a minority view that still posits Sydney Rigdon as the author using Samuel Spaulding’s Manuscript Found as a story template. And while that’s an interesting theory, it has the disadvantage of not having any proof.

For an introduction to Smith and the LDS Church I still recommend Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History (although it’s a bit dated at this point) or Richard Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling (although it’s a bit of a hagiography in places).