Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith - Softcover

Jon Krakauer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330419129 ISBN 13: 9780330419123

Publisher: Pan, 2011

Synopsis

'A provocative look at the twisted roots of American fundamentalism.' Will Self, Evening Standard Books of the Year

Excellent . . . a lucid, judicious, even sympathetic account not just of Mormon Fundamentalism but of the seductive power of fanaticism in general. Daily Telegraph

Remarkable . . . for anyone interested in the wilder frontiers of spiritual conviction, this book is a must. Independent

Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. In Under The Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's investigation is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith: an incisive look inside isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities in America, this gripping work of non-fiction illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour.

About this title

Product Description:

From the bestselling author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air , a riveting account of Taliban-like theocracies in the American heartland controlled by renegade Mormon prophets

Review:

Under the Banner of Heaven is a riveting read. The Lafferty boys were brought up in a squeaky clean All-American family. So what made two of them follow revelations from God to slit the throat of their ex-beauty queen sister-in-law and her infant daughter? The problem was that they got involved in the fundamentalist, survivalist wing of the Mormon Church.

Author Jon Krakauer expertly jumps from the immediate horror of the Lafferty boys to the context of Mormonism and the wider questions of religious violence. In the process we are taken on a house of horrors ride through the badlands of fundamentalist Mormon religion. Krakauer introduces us to red necks with more than 30 "wives"--many who were "married" in their early teens. It's a story of fraud, child abuse, incest, physical violence and spiritual and emotional rape at a deep level.

The contemporary story is lurid and shocking, but as Krakauer relates the picaresque story of Joseph Smith--the founder of the Mormon religion--you realise that present day fundamentalist Mormons are far closer to their founder in spirit and behaviour than the more squeaky clean manifestations of modern Mormonism. This well researched and tightly written account gives a great potted history of Mormonism and illuminates the psychotic fringes of religious mentality. In doing so it reveals the wild dangers of spiritual free wheeling and the need for caution and restraint in religion. --Dwight Longenecker

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0330419129
• ISBN 13: 9780330419123
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432