Mormon polygamy is anything but passé. Latter-day Fundamentalists, excommunicated Mormons who practice plural marriage despite the LDS church’s ban, continue to make headlines. Since late 1985, when the first edition of Mormon Polygamy: A History went to press, one of the leaders of the largest Fundamentalist group, the fatherly LeRoy Johnson, died of natural causes and was quietly replaced by equally nondescript Rulon T. Jeffs. Less inconspicuously, Ervil LeBaron’s fanatical followers murdered at least six more people, disaffected members of their own group and potential rivals. And members of the Singer/Swapp families bombed a Mormon chapel, then killed a police officer during a highly publicized seige on the family compound.
In addition to Fundamentalists in the news, important new studies and published works on nineteenth-century polygamy have appeared recently. When the first printing of Mormon Polygamy: A History sold out it seemed appropriate to revise and update the work with a second edition. This also gave me the chance to correct a few minor errors in the first edition which were pointed out by readers.