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Book Review - The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect

Submitted by FrenchDoc on Sun, 2008-05-11 02:27.

SLoS

I have been amazed (in a bad sense) by the story of the raid by the State of Texas on the Fundamentalist Mormon compound in El Dorado and the removal of 460 children. It is indeed incredible that such practices are allowed to persist in the 21st century United States.

When it comes to religious fundamentalist movements and other reactionary and fascist groups, there is no better source on the Internet than the blog Orcinus (David Neiwert’s blog, with co-author Sara Robinson). In this cas, Sara Robinson got the thankless task of reporting on this and in this post (which is well worth a read), she recommended Daphne Bramham’s book, The Secret Life of Saints - Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada’s Polygamous Mormon Sect. I fully trust Sara’s judgment, so, I got the book and, boy, it was quite a read.  Read more 

If you don’t know anything about the Fundamentalist Mormon, this is the book you want to get the full historical and social context of a sect that has tentacles in Utah, Arizona, Texas, Idaho, South Dakota and British Colombia in Canada. Even though the title indicates a focus on the Canadian side of the sect (Bramham is a journalist for the Vancouver Sun and she has a blog there as well), the book includes a lot on the American branch of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FDLS, which has been in the news so much recently).
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