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It appears the book many of us have been waiting for, literally for years, is going to be on the shelves next month. It is called the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. The following new story describes how the writers had access to materials that no one had previously had. However, these materials have now been released, in the same manner as the Joseph Smith letters. The following are excerpts from the Deseret News' story: Book Confronts LDS Tragedy Carrie A. Moore Deseret News As they meticulously pieced together what some are calling the most complete history ever written of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, much of the agony was in the irony for three Latter-day Saint authors. "What did the terrible atrocity say about the killers?" who were led by local LDS Church leaders in southern Utah. "What did it say about their church and its leaders? Did early Mormonism possess a violent strain so deep and volcanic that it erupted without warning?" . . . . Unlike many previous LDS accounts of the tragedy, it portrays the wagon train emigrants passing through southern Utah in September 1857 as ordinary people with bright futures and some flaws rather than as scoundrels who somehow deserved to die. Instead of defending the perpetrators — as some both inside and outside the LDS Church believed the book would do — it names the local LDS leaders and their dark deeds in detail, culling from affidavits given to a 19th century church historian by those who participated in the slaughter or learned of it firsthand. The information, which has never before been available to researchers, came from archives owned by the LDS Church, including those of the faith's First Presidency. What the book doesn't do is implicate then-LDS Church President Brigham Young in directing or ordering the killings. It does describe how his wartime preaching and that of other top LDS leaders contributed to the atmosphere of unquestioned authority, conformity, fear and suspicion that ended with terrible, "unexpected consequences." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I know I've been waiting for this for years. I don't recall the actual dates, but I think I heard it was going to be released in 2005, and that didn't happen. Then it was 2006 and then 2007, and it still didn't happen. So I admit I am very happy to hear it is finally ready for the shelves. (If I have the years wrong, it is my mistake. Perhaps it just has seemed that long.) Elphaba