A review by izbrews
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn

4.0

Jeff Guinn paints a clear picture of the slow descent of Peoples Temple, from a little church in Indiana focused on socialist change and racial integration in the 50s, feeding the hungry and helping people with addiction, to a destructive mess of paranoia, control, abuse, and death. I can't imagine many people would pick up this book without a prior interest in Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, but they should. This book is a cautionary tale for anyone who gets lost in the righteousness of their convictions so much that it justifies certain actions, where regular ethical behaviour doesn't apply, encouraging followers to do things to further the cause by any means necessary, but thinks this kind of thing could never happen to them.