Scott Anderson

I'd been to a number of war zones before in my life, but I had never been in one as terrifying as Chechnya.

The principle of plural marriage was revealed to the Mormons amid much secrecy. Dark clouds hovered over the church in the early 1840s, after rumors spread that its founder, Joseph Smith, had taken up the practice of polygamy. While denying the charge in public, by 1843 Smith had shared a revelation with his closest disciples.

So many times in the history of Mormon polygamy, the outside world thought it had the movement on the ropes only to see it flourish anew.