The Road to Jonestown: Exploring the Rise and Fall of Jim Jones and the People's Temple

Lynn: I read this story wondering how this tragedy took place. The story started with a young Jim Jones and how his mind worked. I was not disappointed reading how he advanced through the years and what the power and greed did to him. I do believe he started out with good intention. This story was well written!

United States on Jan 28, 2024

Cyberlizard: This is a lengthy and detailed history of the life of Jim Jones and his creation, the Peoples Temple.

The book itself appears to be well researched, with the author having interviewed survivors of the Peoples Temple, including two of Jones' own sons. It also bears reading if you have ever seen the 1980 film starring Powers Boothe.

What struck this reviewer as he read the book was incredulity at how Jones got away with running a body that was so heterodox and authoritarian and yet appeared to be hiding in plain sight. Leaving aside Jones' political ideals and idealism for a moment, his view of God and the Scriptures were not just heterodox but in fact virtually antichrist in the technical sense of the word, and yet Jones and the Temple remained ostensibly under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ (in fairness, the tragedy resulted in some changes to ministerial ethics and the process for removing ministers). Part of Jones' strategy was the cultivation of prominent figures, especially political figures, within the community, in addition to which was the force of his own personality. The author also covers Jones' earliest years, raised as a child by a strong-willed...

United Kingdom on Oct 28, 2023

EKCR: Essencial para entender as radicalizações atuais. Pessoas procurando guias filhos e destruindo sua vida, se isolando da família e da realidade. Devemos pensar bem se coisas assim e meditar sobre o mundo atual da radicalização por líderes carismáticos doentios e sem empatia.

Brazil on Jun 10, 2023

Chris Driedger: Everyone knows what happened that awful day; this is the account of the years, even decades that led up to it. The story itself is a slow burn, but told at a pace brisk to keep your interest. Exhaustively researched, the author has obviously put great effort into getting as much of the details and story accurate as possible.

A couple caveats; the author does have a sympathetic view of socialism; which may offend some readers. Also, some of the principal and most interesting characters introduced in the first half of the book seem to fade into the background in the second half.

The book itself is excellent; as difficult as it is to accept how it ended; it is not hard to see how Jones kept such a hold on his people. For me, one of the most brutal parts of this book is reading about his loyal wife Marceline, and how thoroughly Jim Jones destroyed her as a person, right up until the end.

Before I read this book, I knew the ending but little about the beginning and middle; recommended to all who are interested in learning about something that started with good intentions and turned out so badly. I expect to seek out more books written by this author.

Canada on Dec 08, 2021

Robert van Ramselaar: It is rare to read a story that is told with such objectivity. This is truely the complete story and it is well written and researched. Well done.

Germany on Aug 22, 2018

Joubert: Scritto in maniera egregia ed appassionante con un insight molto profondo, difficile staccarsi una volta iniziato, una splendida compagnia in quattro giorni tappato in casa per Influenza!

Italy on Feb 16, 2018

Lionel S. Taylor: This is a topic that I knew just a small amount about and this book really filled in the details for me. Like most people, the only part of the story I was really familiar with was the mass suicide/murder at the end. But this book put it in a context that explains a lot of what these people believed and how they though about the world and about Jones. The tragic ending takes up less than a third of the book and the author does a good job of starting from the beginning and telling the story of Jones as a child, his marriage to his long suffering wife as well as his early days as a pastor in Indianapolis. What is so interesting about this story is that if you did not know how it ended you would think that this was the story of a pastor who while a little strange and controlling had dedicated himself to helping the poor and the downtrodden in society and I got the impression that in the end he still felt he was doing this even if it was selfish and misguided in the extreme.
If there is one shortcoming of this book I think it would have been nice to know what Jones's founders thought of him and why did some of them who had been with him since the beginning stay with him. What was...

United States on Jan 29, 2018

Noel Kanalley: The events of November 18th, 1978, will soon be forty years in the past, and while the world is constantly reminded of the phrase "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" (meaning, don't blindly go along with something), hardly anyone, at least anyone I know, is aware of the tragic origins of this maxim. Jeff Guinn's latest book about the story behind this phrase is probably destined to be the final word on the most tragic event in American religious history. He has no ax to grind, and no hidden agenda to propagate. His book may begin with the horrific aftermath of November 18th, but he never forgets that this story is a process. Relatively little time is spent in "Jonestown", the name and place which subsumed what had always been Peoples Temple until November 18th, because this is a story that spans nearly thirty years, only the last two of which were spent in the jungle settlement in Guyana. No one joined a "cult". Some joined a progressive Pentecostal church in Indianapolis in 1952, led by an earnest young preacher with a gift for prophecy, miraculous healing and a passion for racial equality, and his equally earnest wife, both of whom shared a belief in "activist Christianity". Others...

United States on Nov 12, 2017

Jan Hejda: I have never been more fascinated and hooked on a book prior to reading this one. The summary on the books cover gave a tantalizing glimpse inside one of the most notorious cult killings in American History. If you are interested in American history and psychology, this book is the book for you. There are many literary pieces about the Jonestown Massacre but there are a very few that focus on Jim Jones himself. This author chose to focus on Jim Jones, the man and the personal history of how he became the cult leader we know today. The Road to Jonestown follows the upbring of Jim Jones. As I read the book and looked deeper into Jim’s life, the more I could see how his mind worked. It was very evident that the author spent years analyzing Jones’ life. The book is a very well written with several primary sources. The author’s deft handling of historical facts made this book read like a first person account. The author articulated the story of Jones’ life so well that the reader was able to visualize the events and empathize with the feelings of Jim Jones growing up. I read this book after watching a couple of documentaries about Jonestown. The book was extremely clarifying...

United States on Aug 18, 2017