The Road to Jonestown

Posted on 09 August 2018 by Jeff Guinn

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 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 ordersThe Road to Jonestown is the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown. Best Read The Road to Jonestown [ author ] Jeff Guinn [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr Pardon my rambling my mind has not been this blown by a book in a long, long time First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Jeff Guinn, and Simon Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.My ongoing trek though the world of biographies would not have been complete without a comprehensive piece about an individual who is often misunderstood in history Jeff Guinn has provided this with his s...The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and the People s Temple by Jeff Guinn is a 2017 Simon Schuster publication Thoroughly chilling While I was only in my early teens in 1978, I still recall the news footage of the Jonestown Massacre I understood on some level what had happened, but I couldn t fully digest it I tried not to watch the news reports and steered clear of conversations about it because it made me extremely uncomfortable It was too much for me to cope with, and in all honesty, The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and the People s Temple by Jeff Guinn is a 2017 Simon Schuster publication Thoroughly chilling While I was only in my early teens in 1978, I still recall the news footage of the Jonestown Massacre I understood on some level what had happened, but I couldn t fully digest it I tried not to watch the news reports and steered clear of conversations about it because it made me extremely uncomfortable It was too much for me to cope with, and in all honesty, I still can t wrap my head around it Part of me wanted to read this book, in hopes of garnering some understanding of how something like this happened But, another part of me didn t want to relive that hor...The Road to Jonestown was fascinating and depressing I listened to the audio The author, Jeff Guinn, did a great job of tracing Jim Jones history and the events leading up to the mass suicide in Jonestown It s a good study of the making of a narcissistic paranoid megalomaniac It s still hard for me to understand how Jones attracted and kept his many followers, but I feel that I get it a bitJones had a great need for approval and adulation, and he seemed to be able to zero in on pe The Road to Jonestown was fascinating and depressing I listened to the audio The author, Jeff Guinn, did a great job of tracing Jim Jones history and the events leading up to the mass suicide in Jonestown It s a good study of the making of a narcissistic paranoid megalomaniac It s still hard for me to understand how Jones attracted and kept his many followers, but I feel that I get it a b...So I ve always sort of had a grim fascination with cults extreme religious groups It s one of humanity s most despicable tendencies, but it s incredibly interesting to me to see how groups of otherwise intelligent people become entrapped in factions like this that are so easy to condemn in hindsight.This story in particular held my attention because 1 Many f...This book is mostly composed of what I can only describe as administrative details of Jim Jones s People Temple Pages and pages and pages of unimportant, forgettable detail The move to Jonestown, where 900 Americans would meet their tragic end in the Guyanese jungle at the orders of their cult leader, doesn t even happen until 350 pages into the book The murder suicide itself gets crammed into about 3 paragraphs I don t understand why this author chose to prioritize the irrelevant and gloss This book is mostly composed of what I can only describe as administrative details of Jim Jones s People Temple P...Won this book in a Goodreads giveaway After I received it, I met the author at the San Antonio Book Festival and got my book signed In The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and the People s Temple, the author does a good job describing Jim Jones and the events that lead up to the suicide murder through extensive research and i...The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and Peoples Temple is among the best comprehensive and authoritative books written covering the Jonestown massacre that claimed the lives of 918 people in Guyana, South America on November 18, 1978 Author Jeff Guinn began his extensive research in 2014, and studied the fascinating story behind the grim and sensational media reports and headlines There are thousands of documents and photographs contained in government archives on Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and Peoples Temple is among the best comprehensive and authoritative books written covering the Jonestown massacre that claimed the lives of 918 people in Guyana, South America on November 1...Her fear was that a mass suicide would not be appreciated as a sincere and historic statement I know we can t worry about how what we do will be interpreted maybe in some 50 years someone will understand and perhaps be motivated I don t have much illusion about all that I just hate to see it all go for naughtCarolyn Layton, Peoples Temple member, and mother of one of Jim Jones childrenJeff Guinn lays everything out in The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple he reHer fear was that a mass suicide would not be appreciated as a sincere and historic statement I know we can t worry about how what we do will be interpreted maybe in some 50 years someone will understand and perhaps be motivated I don t have much illusion about all that I just hate to see it all go for naughtCarolyn Layton, Peoples Temple member, and mother of one of Jim Jones childrenJeff Guinn lays everything out in The Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple he retraces the earliest days, Jones childhood in rural Indiana, and catapults...What a sad, sad, story Even while I was listening, I was hoping for a different ending Jeff Guinn is an excellent author of true crime He is somehow able to relate the facts of the story without passing judgement In this case, I learned a lot The Peoples Church, no apostrophe , did a lot of work in the area of desegregation Jim Jones and his wife even adopted a black child In fact, they did a lot of good works together, for the elderly and for the members of their church But as so ofte What a sad, sad, story Even while I was listening, I was hoping for a different ending Jeff Guinn is an excellent author of true crime He is somehow able to relate the facts of the story without passing judgement In this case, I learned a lot The Peoples Church, no apostrophe , did a lot of work in the area of desegregation Jim Jones and his wife even adopted a black child In fact, they did a lot of good works together, for the elderly and for the members of their church But as so often happens, absolute power corrupts and all that Jim ran his church with an iron fist He slept with many partners and somehow made it so that it was okay within his church He began to do drugs a lot of d...An Audible.com purchase.I am old enough to remember the news accounts of Jonestown back in 1978 and the self inflicted for the most part deaths of 918 people children to seniors I often wondered what would drive people to such fanatical support of a leader that they would be willing to die for a cause that did not merit it It was not Mesada There was no invasion For the most part, Jones brought it down on himself and through a very paranoid but methodical brain ended the lives of his fol An Audible.com purchase.I am old enough to remember the news accounts of Jonestown back in 1978 and the self inflicted for the most part deaths of 918 people children to seniors I often wondered what would drive people to such fanatical support of a leader that they would be willing to die for a cause that did not merit it It was not Mesada There was no invasion For the most part, Jones brought it down on himself and through a ver...

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09 August 2018

Jeff Guinn