Book confronts LDS tragedy

Philip Barlow, a historian who holds the Leonard Arrington Chair in Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, said he sees it not only as a mark of the faith's "maturity and confidence to be able to come to terms with their past," but the subject has also become "too big now for the church to ignore with any credibility," in part because the academic study of Mormonism has burgeoned in recent years.

"This was not only a trauma to the victims, their families and descendants, but it was a deep psychological trauma for Latter-day Saints themselves. There has been tremendous denial and avoidance. ... People inside and outside the church will see that the church isn't going to crumble," in light of the book's detailed account of wartime hysteria turned tragic. "Its credibility will deepen and not lessen by its ability to face its warts and difficulties. ...

"People, including Latter-day Saints, want some substantive, authentic history. There's a whole segment of people that are very hungry for that sense of honesty, credibility and self-understanding."

Walker said the book, which includes almost 200 pages of appendices, indexes and footnotes, won't be the end of the story because the narrative concludes only with the finger-pointing in the days after the massacre. It chronicles the crime but doesn't address the punishment, so a second book is in the works, he said.

Both the authors and scholars see lessons in the details of the conditions that led to the massacre. Those cautionary tales apply across societies and institutions but may be most instructive for Latter-day Saints and their leaders, they said.

Caught up in a time

Walker said there is a tendency toward easy finger-pointing without a detailed understanding of the context of the time in which the massacre occurred. As he researched and wrote, he found himself "far more sympathetic and empathetic with the protagonists on both sides than when I started out. I could realize that had I been in that very unusual and peculiar atmosphere in southern Utah in 1857, I could have been in the middle of it myself."

Most of the men who participated were "good men and would have been the pillars of any society" save for one or two weeks during which the planning and execution of the massacre took place. "I kept asking myself the question, 'What would I have done had I been there?' and I'm not sure. We hope leaders will find a lot about human nature and maybe a little about themselves as they read it."