By the New York Times bestselling author of Manson, the comprehensive, authoritative, and tragic story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre—the largest murder-suicide in American history.
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader.
In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.
Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestownis the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader.
In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.
Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestownis the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.
This is probably the most hyped up nonfiction book of the year, and I have been wanting to read it since it came out. But every time I went to my library, the damn thing was checked out, until recently. Like most people, I don't really know much about Jonestown apart from the fact that it was a cult and Kool-Aid references (always wondered how that brand got away from that). Well, now I know more than I think I ever needed to about Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple.
I was also super impressed that Jim Jones Jr gave the book a positive review on the back. Blurbs never draw me because I rarely trust them, but Guinn definitely chose the right one to put on the back.
I always thought it was funny that cults were a big thing in the 1960s, a time widely billed as the age of individuality, and also that those individuals were the ones to fall prey to cults. The Road to Jonestown reminded me of this because the main people Jones targeted weren't uneducated, backwoodsy people (usually the cult member stereotype) but instead urban blacks and college-educated whites who embraced him and the uneducated who viewed him with scorn. The book points us to the idea that he targeted the idealist in them, the people who fervently believe or want to believe in some ideal society.
The book's biggest strength, though, is that it doesn't try and paint Jim Jones and by extension The Peoples Temple as being all bad, instead, it doesn't hesitate to show that there was a lot of good done by the people of The Peoples Temple. Jones' biggest failure, it would seem, was leaving Indianapolis. He did appear to have a genuine interest in helping raise people up, and he was an effective preacher. He could have become a white, 60s version of someone like Al Sharpton, and if he moved further down south he probably could have been even more successful (of course, this is all provided he got those serious mental problems under control). I mean, sure, maybe he wouldn't have been well liked and most people would still think of him as being a snake oil salesman, but what evangelist preacher isn't even a little bit shady? But once he left for Brazil and then California, everything fell apart for him.
This is an impeccably researched and easy to read nonfiction novel, a perfect one-stop book for those even a little bit interested in Jim Jones. Seriously, forget the Wikipedia page and YouTube documentaries, this book has everything you could ever want to know and much you didn't ever even need to know. Highly recommended.
9 out of 10
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