Under the Banner of Heaven - A Story of Violent Faith  - Jon Krakauer - Framed around the vicious murders of 2 people in 1984, Krakauer examines the history of both Mormonism and its many splintered fundamentalist offshoots. He covers familiar ground in the early history of Joseph Smith's founding of the religion, and the trek by Brigham Young to Utah when the Mormon's hoped to settle in an area free from the interference of the Federal government. Less well known incidents include the Mountain Meadow massacre, where an entire wagon train of 'gentile' settlers was wiped out on orders of Brigham Young. He jumps back and forth, a technique which works when showing how the revelation filled delusions of 2 brothers who planned the murders derives from Mormon traditions; but the technique is more jarring when discussing current travels and histories of the polygamist heterodox sects of fundamentalist Mormonism.  The most upsetting portions of the book are not the murder or trial sections, but the descriptions of the psychological and cultural pressures that prevent women from rejecting the demands of husbands and fathers that result in polygamy and incest. Already in isolation, and discouraged from contact with outsiders, these women, often less than 15, are threatened with eternal damnation for them and their relatives if they do not submit.

Kevin Philips – The Cousins’ Wars Religious influences on American history