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  • Road to Jonestown

  • Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
  • Written by: Jeff Guinn
  • Narrated by: George Newbern
  • Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (62 ratings)

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Road to Jonestown cover art

Road to Jonestown

Written by: Jeff Guinn
Narrated by: George Newbern
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Publisher's Summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of Manson comes 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' life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost 1,000 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 900 people died - including almost 300 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' 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' orders. The Road to Jonestown is the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.

©2017 Jeff Guinn (P)2017 Simon & Schuster

What listeners say about Road to Jonestown

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    5 out of 5 stars

great book

the book was good, narrator sounded too happy for such a sensitive subject, he should be narrating kids books haha

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Incredibly thorough and informative.

This was one of the most complete and thorough investigations I have read so far. Details, about even Jones' smallest interactions, were investigated and returned upon when pertinent. At times a bit labouring, but ultimately adding to the complete picture of the events. Highly suggested for the historical reader.

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1 person found this helpful

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A Chilling Tale of Ambition and Destruction

George Newbern does a fantastic job taking us through the life and eventual death of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. Was Jones a good man who fell, or was he doomed from the start? Were, perhaps things different, the corruption would not have set in? Was the corruption truly there from the start? The Road to Jonestown takes you, step by step, through every part of the journey, so you may find yourself drawing your own conclusions. Past factual errors often cited about Jonestown are accounted for, and the benefit of hindsight decades after the incident truly helps contextualize exactly what happens. The seemingly maddening aspects of the Peoples Temple, such as the tumor healings, are helped to be explained by the more personal, helpful things the cult also engaged in. The lunacy is contextualized with the tangible good, which is what helped lead so many to follow the road... to Jonestown.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Long

While I appreciate the attention to detail, it was very long winded and could cut down considerably.

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