The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
Ratings11
Average rating4
15
Ratings11
Average rating4
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was active in the civil rights movement. Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to California and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader. Jeff Guinn examines Jones's life, from his affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to the jungles of Guyana. New details emerge of the events leading to the day in November, 1978, when more than nine hundred people died after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.
Reviews with the most likes.
For anyone who knows me, you know I am a true crime queen hell my best friend can tell you I yell at my books while I read them half the time. Some of the things that have transpired in the world we live and has been printed on paper is horrifying. That being said I wish to thank NetGalley Simon and Schuster for my advanced copy of. The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn. This book made me feel like I was back in college in one of my Psychology classes trying to figure out the mindset of a killer and I loved it. This book will stay with you long after you are done reading it and it is worth the time, it is very well researched and well put together that you get a crazy insight of Jim Jones but you get a good sense of the broken people that fallow him. I don't say that lightly or with any disrespect it just saddens me to see that so many people fallowed such a crazy man to have a place to fit in and feel wanted. The author does a remarkable job of laying out the slow transformation of Jim Jones, from weird kid with a true devotion to social justice to the 47-year-old cult leader who murdered more than 900 of his followers. I don't know how many ways I can praise this book other than to say it's a must read for true crime lovers.
This was so fascinating and creepy and sad. It was so interesting how Jones convinced people he really cared about equality and integration - and maybe he really did?! - and how you could see how people could believe in him.
I appreciated how much time was spent on his easy life and before the tragedy at Jonestown. The context makes it all the more awful and yet intriguing.
Whew, I thought I already knew a lot about Jonestown but this was still very informative and compelling. Guinn did a ton of interviews with survivors and former members and comes across as so compassionate to a group that really was so well-meaning. It's so horrifying to see how this all went off the rails.
