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Originally Posted by landpoke
Or should I just drop it? Don't get me wrong, I fully realize Krakauer's greatest draw is not his writing, but rather the subject matter he chooses and his sometimes vague relationship with facts. That being said I don't recall anything egregiously anti-mainstream Mormon in "Under the Banner of Heaven."
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He spent a long time rehashing Mormon history that to many of us is old ground broken by Brodie, Stegner and others, and not nearly as well written. He relied primarily on these works, secondary sources, and broke no new ground. I liked Into Thin Air, thought it was a well written, gripping read, even a classic in its own right, but this book felt sylishly klunky. The one unique element of his book was the true crime story and his thesis that Mormonism's violent culture and past bears a share of responsiblity.
I thought the thesis was a stretch, not well proven or developed, and kind of a truism about all religions in a way. Though I think a case could be made that the net effect of Christianity (Mormonism is Christian, isn't it?) has been to greatly modulate our or males' inherently violent and bloodthirsty nature.