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Krakauer, Jon ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith
Krakauer, Jon
2003 31609 ABOUT THE BOOK Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith FROM OUR EDITORS The Barnes & Noble Review In bestselling wilderness adventures like Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, award-winning journalist Jon Krakauer has taken us to the extremes of human experience. Now he focuses his sights on extremism of another sort in Under the Banner of Heaven, a chilling tale of violence and fanaticism that strikes at the very heart of religious faith in America. The centerpiece of the story is a grisly double murder committed in 1984 by Ron and Dan Lafferty, Mormon fundamentalist brothers who claimed to have killed at God's direct command. In Krakauer's expert hands, the bizarre details of this brutal crime play out against the equally bizarre history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and its subsequent splintering into fundamentalist sects over the issue of polygamy -- a sacred doctrine put forth by Mormon founder Joseph Smith in 1830. Discarded decades ago in the Mormons' steady march toward the American religious mainstream, polygamy has become a touchstone for fundamentalist dissenters, who seek to return the church to its original vision?at any cost. Krakauer investigates the violent legacy of this single article of faith, explores the link between fundamentalism and the Mormon tradition of personal revelation, and draws a direct line between the religious fervor of a God-fearing community and the religious fanaticism that inspired the Lafferty brothers to kill in the name of the Lord. Storytelling at its most compelling, Under the Banner of Heaven is a gimlet-eyed look into the blood-soaked history of the fastest-growing religion in the Western Hemisphere and a sober examination of the nature of faith in America. Anne Markowski FROM THE PUBLISHER Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under the Banner of Heaven, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief. Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior. SYNOPSIS Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. Random House, Incorporated 0385509510 / 9780385509510
Hardcover As New As New Book Jacket New York
Price:
21.29 USD
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