Name: Alli Sweeney's review of The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn
Item: The Road to Jonestown
Rating: 5
Author: Alli Sweeney

Jeff Guinn

2018 Edgar Award Finalist—Best Fact Crime “A thoroughly readable, thoroughly chilling account of a brilliant con man and his all-too vulnerable prey” (The Boston Globe)—the definitive story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, the largest murder-suicide in American history, by the New York Times bestselling author of Manson. In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness. In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his early days as an idealistic minister to a secret life of extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing, before the fateful 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 Jonestown is “the most complete picture to date of this tragic saga, and of the man who engineered it…The result is a disturbing portrait of evil—and a compassionate memorial to those taken in by Jones’s malign charisma” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

The Road to Jonestown

Alli Sweeney

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. 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 uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors.

Nessa Luna

In my effort to pick up more nonfiction about things I'm interested in, I decided to pick up this book about a cult I had never heard of before (then again, I don't know many real-life cults, to be honest). I thought it was a very interesting look into the life of Jim Jones and his followers and enjoyed (hmpff, is that the right word to use in this case? Idk) the majority of it. 

Sometimes, I felt it dragged a bit and the timeline didn't really flow right, but overall I thought it was an interesting book and will definitely pick up more books like this in the future! Might even try out this author's other book, about Charles Manson, soon!

alina s

Witch

A gripping look at this bizarre chapter of US history.

Laura

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. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Rachel

I knew a little bit about Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, but this book has taught me so much more. I think, like most people, I kind of just thought of him as a crazy guy who had found people crazy enough to follow him. Jim Jones was always pretty shady, but this book helps understand why people followed him, he actually did try to do some good. It is when he did drugs and the power got to his head, that he went mental and became infamous. This book is thorough and took me awhile to get through, but it is higly recommended if you are interested in learning more about him and want to know how in the world did he convince hundreds of people to commit suicide.

Alli Sweeney &
The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn

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The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn