Cover of The road to Jonestown

Book 2017

The road to Jonestown

4.03 35 readers shelved it

Language
English
Published
2017
  • Peoples Temple
  • Criminals, united states
  • Criminals, biography
  • Homicide

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.