Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
This extraordinary work of investigative journalism by Jon Krakauer takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities, where some 40,000 people still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Read May 2022
Obsessed! I love all things religion, cults, and true crime so this was perfect. Loved the style of writing and it led me to read more of his books as well.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to add this one on here because it’s nonfiction and took a while to read but this book was incredibly interesting and I learned a lot. I’ve always been interested in true crime and religious extremism and this combines both in a tasteful yet insightful manner. This author also wrote Into the Wild which was one of my favorite books in high school. Will give a trigger warning there is a lot of themes of domestic abuse, rape, pedophilia, and a lot of incest. Definitely hard to read at times but very good. (They also did a Hulu series on this but I guess they made it a fictional series so it doesn’t really compare exactly but I will probably still watch it anyway.)
Really interesting look at the history of Mormonism and the course of the fundamentalist polygamist splitter groups. I felt bad for my Mormon friends that there's no discussion of how normal and kind the central LDS group is.
Call me crazy, but I wanted more murder. There was a little too much history for my personal liking, but a good read none the less. I know now much more about the Mormon faith than I ever thought I would and it’s history is terrifyingly interesting.
Anonymous reacted with :thumb_up:
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.