Rating: 
Summary: Unbelievable But True
Review: This is a review of Jon Krakauers' book Under the Banner of Heaven, in which he covers the murder of a mother and infant, and more importantly, the history of the Mormon religion and the events and beliefs that lead up to the murders. In my opinion this book is well researched and penetrating. In an age where suicide bombers are in the news almost daily this book seems timely and important. It explores how religious fanatics come to believe that even murder is okay. Krakauer is courageous in bringing commonly held myths and mysticism into the daylight for examination. My opinion is that truth is built on evidence and reason, but faith is built on fiction or dogma. Much of this story confirms that. The prechapter paragraphs are profound quotations that were well chosen. I found Krakauer's book excellent, objective reporting. He does add some opinion in the "Author's remarks" at the end of the book. There are notes on sources for each chapter and an extensive bibliography. Footnotes are frequent and detailed. I was captivated. Just when you think the story couldn't get more bizarre you turn the page and it does, all the way through the book. Seemingly unbelievable, but true. Maps and an index are included. Read it in the spirit of inquiry.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting look at Religious Fanaticism
Review: I have always enjoyed Krakauer's work, especially Into the Wild, which is the tragic story about a young man who loses himself in trying to become another Thoreau, another Tolstoy. Krakauer takes on a much more vast subject area: Religious fanaticism in general, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints specifically. Krakauer brings his usual writing prowess to the story to make it an engrossing study of America's homegrown religion with disturbing parallels between the religion's past and present and ultimately makes it plainly obvious that the Fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism are closer to Joseph Smith's own dream for the religion. This granted, where does that leave the current Mormon church?Some Mormons might flinch at the parallels that are drawn here. But Krakauer repeatedly states that he is not a Christian with a vendetta, but an agnostic who studied historical documents and drew parallels in a journalistic manner. His book is evenhanded in the sense that he seems to think that Mormons are good people, the 'salt of the earth', but he has uncovered some very unsettling information that must be heard. I can understand why a Mormon would cringe after reading some of the book, but nevertheless Krakauer is supported by plenty of documentation. Basically, the narrative is told in three intersecting stories. The first has to to with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the lives they lead inside large cities dominated by patriarchs who usually have in excess of seventy wives. Next is the story of the violent formation of the Mormon Church in the mid-nineteenth century, where we are introduced to such Mormon immortals as Joseph Smith and his first wife, Emma, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and others who formed the church. This part is meticulously researched and has a few facts that throw doubt onto some church doctrines, notably the infamous prophecy that authorized polygamy by noting that Smith was a womanizer that had been accused of having illicit affairs with pubescent girls. This is also the tale of a scorned group of misfits who were attacked at nearly every place they settled, people who come across as very sympathetic. Finally, the third is about two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who embraced the Fundamentalist values preached by Joseph Smith but deprecated by the modern LDS church. Especially haunting are the interviews with Dan Lafferty, a very rational man who has no remorse for what he has done. When Ron thinks that God tells him to kill his sister-in-law and Dan goes along with it, they end up showing the depths that such fanaticism can go. In a world that seems to be filling up with these kinds of people, it is important to note how this sort or mind works. In short, this is a multilayered, complex look at the country's fastest-growing religion. It is also a harrowing journey into the darkest depths of the human soul. Regardless of your religion, this is a cautionary tale of what happens when ideas like Fundamentalism can take over someone's mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Must Read Book Two in the Series - it gets better!
Review: If you enjoyed reading book one in the "Under the Banner of Heaven" Series you'll love book two in the series entitled "Glass Houses and their Rock-Throwing Residents." In it Mr. Krakauer conclusively exposes biblical christianity as the violent faith that it really is. From the many thousands of people killed in the murderous crusades to the present-day acts of violence in the torching and bombing of abortion clinics you won't be able to put it down. Read how many who have murdered abortion clinic workers were propeled into their actions by biblical teachings. In an especially compelling look at a former church pastor you'll see how his religion taught him that by klling innocent people he will go on to glory. Stay tuned for book three when the author changes gears just a bit and goes after those rich evil republicans who want to destroy the poorest among us: the children! He carefully documents how their policies will starve them and any children left over will be poisoned as the republicans go on their wild and crazy environmental destruction spree. Each book is equally well-written, fair, and balanced.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible insight!!
Review: Amazing insight into a popular religon in the American West. A must read for the curious. Sheds light onto a lifestyle under your very nose.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the Osmond Mormons
Review: Jon Krakauer leaves the mountains and wilds behind and sets his sights on Mormon country.The focal point of the book is of a 1984 violent murder of a Mormon woman and her daughter at the hands of two of her brother in laws. The brothers, believing they were spoken to by God carried out the brutal crime with hardly a thought. It's an interesting read that moves beyond the murder and takes a greater look at what was behind it, religious fanaticism. Be it Muslim, Mormon, or Christian, Krakauer loosly touches on what makes these people tick, while specifically examining the Church of Ladder Day Saints, and it's founders.
I found much of the history interesting, although felt it started to get a little bogged down by his sometimes heavy handed point in reference to fanaticism. Still it's a fascinating read about a group of people living in our country that many people probably don't know anything about.
Rating:
Summary: Just when I thought I was over Mormonism
Review: I'm a former Mormon, born and raised in Salt Lake City. I blew off the church 23 years ago, and as long as I didn't discuss my views with my mother, it wasn't much of an issue until I read this book. It made me uncomfortable at first, I think because the linkage between fundamentalism and modern Mormonism goes against my early programming. How annoying to realize the oppressive religion and irrational beliefs I'd spent several years divesting myself of are still with me.
Nothing in this book is unfamiliar to me, but it's full of details I hadn't heard. Krakauer tells a story that's quite different from the one I was raised on and, perhaps unintentionally, reveals the Mormon religion to be a tremendously successful scam. The cult that anti-Mormons say it is and church members insist it is not. Suddenly I'm feeling angry at having been subjected to it. Parental issues aside, Under the Banner of Heaven is fascinating, thoroughly researched and footnoted, and extremely well written if you don't mind the author's frequent use of obscure words to show off his vocabulary. Grab a dictionary and settle in for an engrossing read.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant synthesis of history, religion, and abuse
Review: Jon Krakauer admits he has become obsessed with extremes. It takes one form of extremism to go on an Everest climb, as he shows with "Into Thin Air." Now he returns to the West of his youth. Yet this is not the book he planned to write. Krakauer admits he wanted to describe how today's LDS Church, with their clean-cut, do-good approach, is at odds with its founding history. Instead, he decided to write about fundamentalist Mormons. While the LDS Church declared polygamy illegal in 1890, it took time for the practice to end in the official church. Those who would not accept the changes continued polygamy, with groups moving to Mexico and Canada. And there are those who continue this practice today. Krakauer is determined to understand how this came to be. In order to do this, he must retell the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. While polygamy is no longer accepted by the current LDS authorities, the average Mormon seems less inclined to stamp it out. Krakauer shows several cases of gung-go district attorneys who go after polygamous families, and how these white knights are subsequently removed from office in the next election. He introduces us to small towns where everything and everyone in it answers to one man, the head of the Fundamentalist LDS church (FLDS). All property is owned by their church's corporation. And the girls are married by age 14. Krakauer finds many of them married to men who are already related to them, and at least a generation older. Women are seen as transferrable property, with marriages cancelled should any church member run afoul of the church leader. And remember Elizabeth Smart? Here was a case of a modern Mormon family running into another FLDS wanna-be. Krakauer contrasts her case with another 14-year-old, a FLDS community member, who was hidden in another FLDS community when her sister tried to rescue her from an early marriage she didn't want. The difference between the media treatment of the two kidnap victims is horrifying. All this is merely background for a shocking murder case, where two LDS members who moved toward FLDS decided to kill their sister-in-law for being a bad influence, and her two-year-old as well. Both men insisted they were acting on revelations from God. Krakauer turns this into the Court's unease with discussions of religious belief and sanity. The negative reviews of this book appear to come from LDS members who are unhappy with Krakauer's history of their church. It's a pity they missed his important points on the danger of revealed religion (where anyone can justify anything), or the welfare fraud committed by FLDS communities (subsequent wives declare themselves single parents and don't identify the father, while living in a trailer in his backyard), or the uneasy relationship between mainline Mormons and latter-day polygamists. It's a shame they are unwilling to look at their own church's rapidly mutating scriptures, where Krakauer shows how doctrinal racism was not removed from church teachings until the 1970s. One might ask how many of them actually read the book rather than took the advice of their stake president to publicly condemn it. Read it for yourself, then let us know. It is a fascinating, disturbing, insightful, and important book.
Rating:
Summary: Not Anti-Mormon...just Intelligent
Review: This is an extraordinary book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Though the Mormon Church has expressed it's hostility toward the book, as with all ostriches, they are simply sticking their head in the sand and asking the rest of us to follow suit. Thank goodness for people outside the Church who look in, and tell us what they see. This is not an anti-mormon book, and the fact that Latter-day Saints and their leaders are so worked up about it seems to me to be a recognition that Krakauer is hitting pretty close to home. Ironically, he handles the modern LDS church with kid gloves, and is very careful to make the distinction between the Mormon Fundamentalits and the Mormons themselves. However, and this is the point that should be lost on no one, both churches hail from the same "common ancestors," and have evolved rather organically from those early prophets, most importantly Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor. At the time of Wilford Woodruff the world saw a split, and those familiar with the paradigms of biological evolution will recognize exactly what was going on. Today we see two radically different organizations with radically different messages...but they came from the same place. Here's another juicy item that must drive the Church nuts. The fundamentalists are perfectly justified in their position on polygamy, extreme patriarchy and racism. After all, if those were the "revealed word of God" back in the early days of the church, then who are the modern day leaders to deny that word of God today? Just because wicked governments :-) refuse to cooperate should be no reason to back away from the most important points of doctrine. If it was good enough for Daniel to not back down (resulting in being cast into the lions den) then it should be good enough for modern prophets to not back down, either. (Okay, it's pretty darn important for me to state that I'm simply pointing out the fundamentalist argument, not my own opinion...) At the end of the book you are treated to the prosecution team's argument that religious thinking is NOT insane, even it is, on the face, irrational. Any religious person should be moved, not disturbed, by the thoughtful arguments made by the prosecution's witnesses, many of whom were Mormon. There are those who review this book who claim that the history is all wrong because it isn't always consistent with the "faithful history" that Elder Boyd K. Packer et al promote, and which is often the only history Mormons are familiar. Krakauer has consumed a great deal of history, and has drawn some really important conclusions. To throw out his book as "inacurate" because of a few minor disagreements on interpretation of facts would be like throwing out the quantum theory because we can't actually "see" a quark. The viewer, or the reader, interprets what they see or read and comes to rational conclusions based on their assessment. I want to read what other people DECIDE ON THEIR OWN after doing the research, not the same, tired old stories that have been approved and fed to the sheep year after year after year. I 've read a ton of Church history, and nothing that Krakauer said raised any red flags for me. But if there is a mistake in his "facts" somewhere (and if it's there, it's tiny), then it is still immaterial. The conclusions that the reader draws as they read how religious zeal CAN lead the faithful far, far astray is dead-on, pun intended. This is an excellent, excellent book, and no one, Mormon or otherwise, should be "afraid" to read it, or afraid to consider what the implications might be.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifying, an 'unputdownable' thriller
Review: Once again Jon Krakauer rivets readers' attention in his newest page-turner. Thoroughly researched and documented [though inadequately footnoted] this book will alternately shock, disgust, outrage, sadden and even offend all who read it, whether LDS or not. It's that relevant, and that captivating. A glance through the reviews here [and on the church's official website] shows that most LDS reviewers have little good to say about this book. No wonder. Without the least hint of animosity or ill will or "anti-mormon" spirit, Jon Krakauer has called onto the carpet the entire history of the Mormon faith, using their own sources. His evidence is impeccable, more often than not consisting of the actual statements made by the LDS leaders and decision makers invovled in establising and maintaining the polygamous practices at issue. This book is a must-read, not only for every serious student of LDS history, but for anyone interested in the history and current practice of polygamy in the United States. It cannot be recommended highly enough. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Errors
Review: How sad that hundreds of people will read this book and believe what Mr. Krakauer has written about the history of the LDS Church. There were so many half-truths and rumers that he added to support his story of religious belief and violence. There are many people who will argue my opinion that Mr Krakauer has done a poor job of presenting the LDS history, and say that he gives a wonderful insight onto what really happened,but honestly, lets stop and think about what sells books...
If you read this book and you're actually interested in learning about the real LDS history you should go to the true source and visit LDS.org or visit fairlds.org to read an honest review of this book by LDS members or simply talk to a member.
All in all though, people will choose to believe what they believe. It's not as if this is the first book to give a sordid history of whatever religion. If someone was really interested in Church history they would actually do a little more research.
And this book will eventually join every other dust covered book in the public libraries all over the world. And 11 million LDS members, and millions more that will probably join won't think twice about it.
| 
