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The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy . By Terryl L. Givens. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. viii + 205 pp. $35.00 cloth.

Religious persecution often occurs through the print media—newspapers, magazines, books, tracts, even dime novels. Religious crusaders in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced a virtual flood of attacks on specific religious groups. Their intolerance was directed against Shakers, Millerites, Spiritualists, and especially Catholics. The various groups were accused of either heresy or conspiracy or being un-American. The ease of printing and the widening audience of readers made such sensational writing about dangers to America appealing to a wide audience, not unlike the similar output by Abolitionists. It was a tactic of flamboyant publishing. Terryl L. Givens has examined similar American literature attacking the Mormons from their 1830 founding to the present time. He shows its relation to accusations against other religions.