A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

( 8 )

Pick Up in Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Hardcover
$19.77
BN.com price
$26.00 List Price (Save 24%)
Marketplace (New and Used)
from
$1.94
$26.00 List Price (Save 93%)
All (48)  
Used (21)  
New (27)  
Close
Sort by
Page 1 of 5
Showing 1 – 10 of 48 (5 pages)
$1.94
(Save 93%)
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(1259)

Condition:

New — never opened or used in original packaging.

Like New — packaging may have been opened. A "Like New" item is suitable to give as a gift.

Very Good — may have minor signs of wear on packaging but item works perfectly and has no damage.

Good — item is in good condition but packaging may have signs of shelf wear/aging or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Acceptable — item is in working order but may show signs of wear such as scratches or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Used — An item that has been opened and may show signs of wear. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Refurbished — A used item that has been renewed or updated and verified to be in proper working condition. Not necessarily completed by the original manufacturer.

Good
Complete and clean. Good reading copy. Light edge wear to cover

Ships from: Irmo, SC

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$1.98
(Save 92%)
Seller since 2012

Feedback rating:

(150)

Condition: Good
This is a good copy with average wear. The dust jacket is included if the book originally was published with one and could have small tears and rubbing.

Ships from: Cheyenne, WY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(12871)

Condition: Very Good
A copy that may have been read, very minimal wear and tear. May have a remainder mark.

Ships from: East Patchogue, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(12871)

Condition: Like New
Used Like New, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark.

Ships from: East Patchogue, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Seller since 2006

Feedback rating:

(376)

Condition: New
Hardcover New 1416596399 ** New, never read, may have minor wear on cover from being on a retail store shelf.

Ships from: Lakeville, MA

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$2.00
(Save 92%)
Seller since 2005

Feedback rating:

(3145)

Condition: Like New
Like New Minimal wear to cover. Pages clean and binding tight. Hardcover.

Ships from: New York, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$2.42
(Save 91%)
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(3638)

Condition: New
1416596399 SHIPS TODAY!! GREAT BOOK!!

Ships from: BAY SHORE, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$4.20
(Save 84%)
Seller since 2009

Feedback rating:

(1084)

Condition: Like New
Hardcover Fine 1416596399 New unread book from the publisher in like new condition and may have a remainder mark. Fast shipping and customer service is our number 1 priority!

Ships from: new bedford, MA

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$4.20
(Save 84%)
Seller since 2009

Feedback rating:

(1084)

Condition: Good
Hardcover Good 1416596399 Book could have shelf wear, or a bump, or sunfade to edges. These are new unread books from the publisher with one of these conditions. See are ... feedback as customers are satisfied in how we grade our books. Has remainder mark. Fast shipping and customer service is our number 1 priority! Read more Show Less

Ships from: new bedford, MA

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
$5.00
(Save 81%)
Seller since 2005

Feedback rating:

(172)

Condition: Very Good
2011 Hardcover Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket 9781416596394. Near new; text clean and tight; 1.3 x 9.1 x 6.1 Inches; 320 pages.

Ships from: Baldwin City, KS

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • Canadian
  • International
  • Standard, 48 States
  • Standard (AK, HI)
  • Express, 48 States
  • Express (AK, HI)
Page 1 of 5
Showing 1 – 10 of 48 (5 pages)
Close
Sort by
NOOK Book (eBook)
$12.99
BN.com price

Available on NOOK devices and apps

  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for iPad
  • NOOK for iPhone
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK for Android (Tablet)
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

Sending request ...

Overview

“A gripping account of how decent people can be taken in by a charismatic and crazed tyrant” (The New York Times Book Review).

In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics. Even as Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there.

The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope.

Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

"Life became a series of odd events." That's how one of the inmates of Jim Jones' Jonestown, Guyana community described the group's descent into madness and mass suicide. Begun in 1974 as a utopia and sanctuary, the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project quickly evolved into a brutal work camp dictatorship ruled by indoctrination, torture, and rape. Eventually, on November 18th, 1978, the settlement extinguished itself, annulling 918 lives, thus almost fulfilling a prophecy ("I'll take a thousand with me") by its megalomaniacal leader, self-anointed Pastor Jim Jones. Julia Schneeres' A Thousand Lives reconstructs Jonestown through the experiences of the idealistic, troubled, and impoverished men and women who went to a remote forest in South America hoping for a paradise on earth. A well-researched book that reveals human stories behind a senseless tragedy.

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.

While researching a novel set in a cult environment, Scheeres (Jesus Land) discovered the 50,000 pages of documents released by the FBI about the mass-murder suicide at Jonestown. She decided to change her project, and the result is this detailed, haunting account of the zealous young preacher from Indiana who convinced 1,000 people to move to a farm in Guyana and sacrifice their lives according to his vision. As Scheeres writes, Jim Jones "painted himself as modern Moses who would save his people...by leading them to the promised land of Jonestown." The book maintains some novelistic features, particularly excellent character development, as seen in the vividly described, though still elusive Jones. Jonestown residents like Tommy Bogue, a rebellious teenager frequently a victim of Jones' ire, and Edith Roller, passionate socialist and Jonestown chronicler, are among the good people caught up in Jones's twisted vision. Scheeres quotes heavily from the 45-minute recording Jones made while instructing his people to drink poison, and the final pages follow up with some of the survivors. Chilling and heart-wrenching, this is a brilliant testament to Jones's victims, so many of whom were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
Scheeres (Jesus Land: A Memoir) revisits the massacre at Jonestown on its 33rd anniversary. In November 1978, nearly 1000 bodies were found in an open field in a compound in Guyana, victims of a religious fanatic-turned-mass murderer who had forced them to drink poisoned Flavor Aid. They were members of the Peoples Temple, a supposedly peaceful, self-sufficient community run by Jim Jones, a former activist for integration and the temple's charismatic founder. As conditions in Guyana worsened, cult members' families in California asked Sen. Leo Ryan to visit the community; he arrived just before the massacre and was murdered by Jones's henchmen. Scheeres interviewed some of the few survivors not in the group that eventful morning. Her book is made up of their stories: how they were taken in by Jones only to be betrayed. VERDICT An evenhanded journalistic account of what happened, this should appeal to anyone who remembers Jonestown or is curious about it. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 4/25/11.]—Frances Sandiford, formerly with Green Haven Correctional Facility Lib., Stormville, NY
Kirkus Reviews
Haunting account of the Peoples Temple, focusing on Jim Jones' many victims. Scheeres (Jesus Land: A Memoir, 2005) notes that her personal experience at a Christian reform school made her empathetic to the luckless individuals who died at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, since derided as cultists or worse: "My aim here is to help readers understand the reasons that people were drawn to Jim Jones and his church." Accomplishing this goal with crisp prose and impressive research, she delivers a sort of '70s social thriller with the weight of onrushing tragedy. Scheeres dove into 50,000 pages of FBI documents, released to little fanfare, including diaries of true believers and reams of bizarre correspondence between Jones and his inner circle, proving that he was considering ways to kill his followers for years prior to the mass-murder suicide. Jones' early years remain confounding: He began preaching as a Pentecostal in Indiana in the 1950s, fighting for integration long before it was considered safe to do so. His apparent passion for social justice in these early years won him a devoted, largely African-American congregation. Upon moving to California in the late '60s, Jones cultivated ties to the state's power structure, which gave political cover to his increasingly wealthy and secretive church. "In the early days," write Scheeres, "there was a real sense of camaraderie in Jonestown"--but this changed after Jones arrived there permanently in 1977. By then, Jones had rejected most elements of mainstream Christianity in favor of something much darker; he'd become obsessed with "revolutionary suicide," a concept advanced by Huey Newton, which Jones deliberately misinterpreted. Scheeres shows great compassion and journalistic skill in reconstructing Jonestown's last months and the lives of many Temple members (including a few survivors), showing the documents archived by the FBI "tell a nightmarish tale of…idealists who realized, too late, that they were trapped." Well-written, disturbing tale of faith and evil.
Alan Riding
Over the past three decades, the massacre has been explored in numerous books and even several television documentaries. Yet the story does bear retelling, not least for those too young to recall the shock that swept the world at the time, but also because Scheeres adds insights harvested from some 50,000 pages of letters, journals and other documents found in Jonestown and recently released by the F.B.I. The result is a gripping account of how decent people can be taken in by a charismatic and crazed tyrant.
—The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781416596394
  • Publisher: Free Press
  • Publication date: 10/11/2011
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 102,439
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.22 (h) x 1.12 (d)

Meet the Author

Julia Scheeres is the author of New York Times bestselling memoir Jesus Land. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and two daughters.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

Had I walked by 1859 Geary Boulevard in San Francisco when Peoples Temple was in full swing, I certainly would have been drawn to the doorway.

I grew up in a conservative Christian family with an adopted black brother; race and religion were the dominant themes of my childhood. In our small Indiana town, David and I often felt self-conscious walking down the street together. Strangers scowled at us, and sometimes called us names. I wrote about the challenges of our relationship in my memoir, Jesus Land.

Suffice it to say, David and I would have been thrilled and amazed by Peoples Temple, a church where blacks and whites worshipped side by side, the preacher taught social justice instead of damnation, and the gospel choir transported the congregation to a loftier realm. We longed for such a place.

Unfortunately, the laudable aspects of Peoples Temple have been forgotten in the horrifying wake of Jonestown.

I stumbled onto writing this book by accident. I was writing a satirical novel about a charismatic preacher who takes over a fictional Indiana town, when I remembered Jim Jones was from Indiana, and Googled him. I learned that the FBI had released fifty thousand pages of documents, including diaries, meeting notes, and crop reports, as well as one thousand audiotapes that agents found in Jonestown after the massacre, and that no one had used this material to write a comprehensive history of the doomed community. Once I started digging through the files, I couldn’t tear myself away.

It was easy to set my novel aside. I believe that true stories are more powerful, in a meaningful, existential way, than made-up ones. Learning about other people’s lives somehow puts one’s own life in sharper relief.

Aside from race and religion, there were other elements of the Peoples Temple story that resonated with me. When David and I were teenagers, our parents sent us to a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic that had some uncanny parallels with Jonestown. I could empathize with the residents’ sense of isolation and desperation.

You won’t find the word cult in this book, unless I’m directly citing a source that uses the word. My aim here is to help readers understand the reasons that people were drawn to Jim Jones and his church, and how so many of them ended up dying in a mass-murder suicide on November 18, 1978. The word cult only discourages intellectual curiosity and empathy. As one survivor told me, nobody joins a cult.

To date, the Jonestown canon has veered between sensational media accounts and narrow academic studies. In this book, I endeavor to tell the Jonestown story on a grander, more human, scale.

Julia Scheeres Berkeley, California, March 24, 2011

© 2011 Julia Scheeres

CHAPTER 1
AN ADVENTURE

The journey up the coastline was choppy, the shrimp trawler too far out to get a good look at the muddy shore. While other passengers rested fitfully in sleeping bags spread out on the deck or in the berths below, fifteen-year-old Tommy Bogue gripped the slick railing, bracing himself against the waves. He’d already puked twice, but was determined not to miss a beat of this adventure. The constellations soared overhead, clearer than he’d ever seen them. He wiped salt spray from his eyes with an impatient hand and squinted at the horizon. He was still boy enough to imagine a pirate galleon looming toward them, the Jolly Roger flapping in the Caribbean breeze.

This was his first sea journey. His first trip outside the United States. He squinted at South America as it blurred by, vague and mysterious, imagining the creatures that roamed there. A few years earlier, he’d devoured DC Comics’ Bomba, The Jungle Boy series, and now imagined himself the hero of his own drama.

The very name of his destination was exotic: Guyana. None of his school friends had ever heard of it, nor had he before his church established an agricultural mission there. After his pastor made the announcement, Tommy read and reread the Guyana entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica until he could spout Guyanese trivia to anyone who showed the slightest interest in what the lanky, bushy-haired teen had to say. Aboard the Cudjoe, he ticked off this book knowledge to himself. Jaguars. Howler monkeys. One of the world’s largest snakes, the green anaconda, growing up to twenty feet long and reaching 350 pounds. The country was home to several of the world’s largest beasts: the giant anteater, the giant sea otter, the giant armadillo, the fifteen-foot black caiman. He knew a few things about the strangeness surrounding him, and those few things comforted him.

The plane ride from San Francisco to Georgetown had been another first for Tommy. He sat next to another teenager from his church, Vincent Lopez, and the two boys took turns gaping out the small convex window as they soared over the Sierra Nevada, the Great Plains, the farm belt—the entire breadth of America. The cement mass of New York City astounded him; skyscrapers bristled toward every horizon. At JFK International Airport, Pastor Jones, who was going down to visit the mission himself, kept a tight hand on the boys as he herded them toward their connecting flight.

Everything about Tommy Bogue was average—his height, his build, his grades—except for his penchant for trouble. His parents couldn’t control him. Neither could the church elders. He hated the long meetings the congregation was required to attend, and was always sneaking off to smoke weed or wander the tough streets of the Fillmore District. Ditching church became a game, one he was severely punished for, but which proved irresistible.

They’d only told him two days ago that he was being sent to the mission field. His head was still spinning with the quickness of it all. The counselors told him he should feel honored to be chosen, but he was wise to them. He overheard people talking about manual labor, separation from negative peers, isolation, culture shock: All these things were supposed to be good for him. He knew he was being sent away, but at least he’d get out of the never-ending meetings, and more important, he’d see his father, for the first time in two years.

His dad left for Guyana in 1974, one of the pioneers. He’d called home a few times over the mission’s ham radio, and in brief, static-filled reports, he sounded proud of what the settlers had accomplished: clearing the bush by hand, planting crops, building cottages. Tommy was eager to see it himself.

Finally, as the sun blazed hot and high overhead, the Cudjoe shifted into low gear and swung toward land. The other church members crowded Tommy as the boat nosed up a muddy river, the wake lifting the skirts of the mangroves as it passed. In the high canopy, color flashed: parrots, orchids, bromeliads.

The travelers slipped back in time, passing thatched huts stilted on the river banks and Amerindians, who eyed them warily from dug-out canoes. This was their territory. Late in the afternoon, the passengers arrived at a village named Port Kaituma and excitement rippled through them. The deck hands tied the Cudjoe to a pole in the water and Tommy helped unload cargo up the steep embankment. Pastor Jones, who’d spent most of the trip secluded in the deck house, welcomed them to the village as if he owned it. There wasn’t much to it beyond a few stalls selling produce and secondhand clothes. As he spoke, Tommy listened attentively along with the others; Guyana was a fresh start for him, and he planned to stay out of trouble. Jones told the small group that the locals were grateful for the church’s assistance—the mission’s farm would put food on their tables.

After a short delay, a tractor pulling a flatbed trailer motored up and the newcomers climbed aboard with their gear. The tractor slipped and lurched down the pitted road to the mission, and the passengers grabbed the high sides and joked as if they were on a hayride. All were in good spirits.

At some point, Tommy noticed the squalor: the collapsing shanties, the naked brown kids with weird sores and swollen bellies, the dead dogs rotting where they fell. The trenches of scummy water. The stench. The mosquitoes whining in his ears. The landscape didn’t jibe with the slide shows Pastor Jones had shown at church, which made Guyana look like a lush resort.

Tommy didn’t point out these aberrations, but turned to listen to Pastor Jones, who raised his voice above the tractor’s thrumming diesel engine. He was boasting, again, about how everything thrived at the mission. About the ice cream tree, whose fruit tasted like vanilla ice cream. About the protective aura surrounding the Church’s property: There was no sickness there, no malaria or typhoid, no snakes or jungle cats ventured onto it. Not one mishap whatsoever. The adults nodded and smiled as they listened. Tommy turned toward the jungle again. The bush was so dense he couldn’t see but a yard in before it fell away into darkness.

The tractor veered down a narrow road and passed through a tight stand of trees. The canopy rose two hundred feet above them. The light dimmed as they drove through this tree tunnel, as if they’d entered a candle-lit hallway and someone was blowing out the candles one by one. The air was so still it bordered on stagnant. Tommy glanced behind them at the receding brightness, then ahead, to where his father waited.

They drove into a large clearing. Here were a few rustic buildings, and beyond them, rows and rows of plants. A dozen or so settlers stood along the entry road, and the two groups shouted joyfully to each other. Tommy didn’t immediately see his dad. He was disappointed, but unsurprised; his old man was probably nose to the grindstone, as always. He lifted his duffle bag onto his shoulder and jumped onto the red earth, happy to have arrived, at long last, in Jonestown.

© 2011 Julia Scheeres

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 8 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(5)

4 Star

(2)

3 Star

(1)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identiy on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

We're sorry, but penname is already taken.

Please select one of the following:
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

penname is available!

By visiting the BN.com website or marking a purchase on BN.com, a User is deemed to have accepted the Terms of Use.

Continue Anonymously

Welcome, penname

You have successfully created your Pen Name. Start enjoying the benefits of the BN.com Community today.

Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews
  • Posted October 30, 2011

    Amazing Account of the Jonestown Horrors

    Julia Scheeres has done it again. "A Thousand Lives" is a worthy successor to her remarkable memoir "Jesus Land." Using a sharp journalistic style with only an occasional personal opinion, she takes us on the journey that Jim Jones' followers went on, a journey that took them from an idealistic hope of a better world only to see their trust and devotion totally perverted and manipulated by a narcissistic madman. Scheeres shows us that Jones' followers were normal flesh-and-blood people with the best intentions who definitely did not anticipate their fates and many did openly resist. They were for the most part, simply duped. But most had been broken via brainwashing and betrayal by the time they drank or were forced to drink the Kool-Aid.

    This book is comparable in story, writing style, and quality to the magnificent "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand. In both cases a large group of Americans were tortured and brainwashed by sadistic monsters, but the American soldiers in Japanese prison camps remained unbroken because they knew what to expect from their tormenters. The victims at Jonestown had been erroneously led to believe that their tormenter was a God-like healer who loved them. So they had nothing to fall back on when his monstrous behavior gradually took over their lives. By then you could trust only yourself, because if you "conspired" with another to resist or leave, you would likely be ratted on to your tormentor and subjected to more torturous treatment to break you physically and mentally. The American soldiers at least had each other to lean on for assurance and assistance. Still the question lingers why did so many seemingly intelligent people become avid accomplices of the madman's mass-murder plans, enabling him to end a thousand lives. Scheeres leaves it to the readers to draw their own conclusions on the "why" questions and she gives us ample information with which to work.

    Julia Scheeres has created a great work on how madness and manipulation by one person can eventually spread and take over a society.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  No   Report this review
  • Posted October 15, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Scary but Gripping

    I wasn't alive when Jonestown happened but I knew about it before I read this book. What I didn't understand before I read this book is how so many people could follow this crazy man because he seemed outwardly crazy. I just couldn't understand. Scheeres is a master in showing how much Jim Jones manipulated and almost brain washed his followers.


    I didn't realize that Jones started his church out of a fight for civil rights. He believed that churches needed to end segregation and give all of their attendees equal treatment. Jones eventually started his own church based on social equality and socialism. To many of his followers, he seemed to be on the right path. On a road paved with good intentions there were also speed bumps, potholes, and sinkholes.


    Jones promised that he could provide that equality that his followers wanted and that he could promise them eternal salvation. For those who believe him, they believe that he's their key to a better life. After moving his entire church from the midwest to one of the poorest areas in California, he is able to gain more of the trust of his people. It's scary how much power Jones had over the people. Scheeres goes through some of the stories of the different people that followed Jones to Jonestown. They all had their want of a better life and they trusted Jones to make it happen. By telling the story of Jonestown through the stories of the people, Scheeres pulls you in quickly and doesn't let you go.


    I felt bad for the followers. Some of them didn't realize how in over their heads they were until the very end.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  No   Report this review
Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)
500 character limit