I can remember as a child when this horrible event happened, I can remember the shock and horrific details as they were reported in a timewithout 24 hour news channels. It was unbelievable! This book fills in the gaps and answers many questions for me as well as inspires many, many more. Sadness is on every page intermingled with hope and pure evil. I am sad it happened but I am glad someone like Jeff Guinn took the time to write a clear account of Jonestown.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read for a fair review.

Part of me didn't WANT to finish this book because I remember the news stories and knew what eventually happened to all of the people. However, I was curious how so many people could have been "talked into" doing what they did. This was a very interesting history lesson about how power took over a person who then used it unfairly to his advantage, AND how so many people fell for his leadership.

Just fascinating. Jeff Guinn isn't a stranger to my library shelf - so I was thrilled that he tackled this bizarre and troubling event. He didn't disappoint. With a story that doesn't need any frills to be interested in, he still made the journey gripping and even more interesting. I had barely entered the world when the infamous event happened in 1978 so what I had heard about the event - and watched in documentaries - always left more to my imagination. Jeff's research went above and beyond and the final product is so much more than the one event---it is a complete look at Jones and his life in its entirety.
This is one time you want to drink the Kool-Aid!

I received an e-ARC of this book through NetGalley and Simon & Schuster True Crime. Thank you.

This is a story which will disturb you during the time you are reading it and after you put the book down. I wanted to see how Jim Jones was able to convince so many people that he was one person when he so obviously was another. One of the things which came as such a surprise to me was how his ministry began around such a good thing: equality and dignity for everyone. And Jones absolutely believed in helping people attain those things. What also surprised me was how willing some of his followers were to allow him to use whatever means he wanted in order to forge his ministry into his ultimate goal. I think about the only thing Jones never actually did was commit murder, but he sure made people who tried to leave his mission think that he wouldn't hesitate to do that too.

Living the perfect socialist lifestyle (later with definite leanings toward communism) is how this incredibly charismatic man took his small town Christian revival teaching to the front pages of the world's newspapers. Of course, by then it was too late for those who had shown their ultimate love and loyalty to him by dying for him. Even then Jim Jones didn't follow his own teachings because he took a bullet in the head instead of the agonizing death by cyanide poisoning which his followers endured. Some might have needed persuading by the armed guards before they gave the infants and children the poison squirted from syringes while adults drank it from cups, but most were willing participants. Some members simply told the guards they wanted to leave and they were allowed to go. Down to the bitter end this was a contradiction of good intentions versus evil manipulation.

Author Jeff Guinn has written an absolutely fascinating revelation of exactly how Jim Jones became the leader he was so we can understand the power and control Jones had over almost everyone he came into contact with. Even people who were never members of his Peoples Temple were willing to do his bidding after spending even a small amount of time in his presence. How do you fool so many people? The answer is, you have charm, you tell them what they want or need to hear, and you have people backing you up to help you run the con game. Good people joined Peoples Temple because Jones promised them racial equality and dignity or because they saw through his religious façade to his socialist intentions and agreed that was the way the world would work best. Not everyone remained with Peoples Temple, some left. Some even left many times and returned. I was absolutely fascinated to learn at what point the Peoples Temple followers knew about the mass suicide plan. What an incredible hold he had over them.

I read this book on an e-reader. The final 15-16% of the book is taken up with the Footnote information. There was an impressive amount of research which went into the making of this book.

This was such a horrible crime. He's a very bad man who brainwashed his people. I didn't realize he used Cyanide to kill everyone. What a slow and painful death. Nothing about this man was ever likeable.

Given to me by Netgalley in exchange for a review. I expected a bit more from it. Very slow paced and confusing when the author tries to explain how Peoples Temple (yes, check the spelling of Peoples and why it is spelled like that). Beyond that, I can find no fault with the book.

I distinctly remember the day I head of the Jonestown tragedy. I was in the 7th grade, and my friends and I gathered in tight little clusters talking over the events that were slowly emerging in the news. Almost a thousand people dead, including children and babies. Kool-Aid and cyanide. A senator shot to death trying to escape. A crazy man named Jim Jones.

Ever since then, I've wondered how one man could orchestrate the death of so many people and why they would willingly kill themselves. I vaguely remember watching a TV documentary on Jones' life that focused on his affairs and how good people got duped.

After reading Jeff Guinn's new biography of Jim Jones, I understand so much more. Guinn interviews people who knew Jim Jones when he was a youngster as well as people who knew him as a young man and idealistic reformer to put together a picture of a complex man whose life veered off the normal path degree by slow degree as more and more people joined his church—the Peoples Temple.

Guinn brings to light information that I never knew before—for example, Jim Jones can be credited with helping Indianapolis integrate during the Civil Rights movement—without violence. Jones was a master tactician in a battle against segregation. His understanding of human psychology helped him manipulate thousands of people, and his charismatic personality kept them coming back for more.

Even though some of Jones' followers knew that he blatantly lied and manipulated the truth, Guinn states, "Nothing was more important than the cause, facts included."

This well-written, well-researched book brings to light the problem with demagogues—they can't save us. When we fall under their spell, we risk everything—including our lives.

Jonestown has been something of a curiosity to me most of my adult life. When they first started building in Guyana, my grandparents were Christian missionaries there, and one story about their time there was preaching to some people in Georgetown and someone saying, "Like the Messiah that is coming to Guyana to save everyone." This person was talking about Jim Jones, and it is odd to me that my mother was in the same place at the same time as the Peoples Temple, in their final days. Of course I have probably crossed paths with Jim Jones or the legacy of his works more than once, considering Indianapolis is the capital of my state, and when I did go to church, it was the re-branded "Disciples of Christ" denomination, renamed "United Church of Christ". I know that this denomination has no real influences in the individual churches unless you ask them for help, so it is no surprise that Jones had very little problem with them. This story has been on my radar for years and years, and I always knew the basic outline, from Indy to California to Guyana, from good works and social justice and equality for people of color to paranoia and drug abuse, and from being a good leader, sticking up for the less fortunate and trying to make life better for everyone through social initiative and strong sense of justice to being a psychopath, bent on squirreling away money, treating his wife, his lovers, and his followers like garbage until the very end. Even with knowing all of this before starting "The Road to Jonestown," this book is riveting and the best explanation of the Jim Jones that has been written. Guinn paints Jones as a leader, a sympathetic character that eventually turns into a villain and someone that is hard to like at all. Jones's early days in Indy are incredible, and it makes me kind of proud of all of the things that he did to diversify the city. From integrating restaurants and work forces to making sure the poor have a strong voice in their corner, the Indianapolis chapters almost makes me want to brag on how good of an influence Jones was to the state of Indiana. The problem is that the rest of his legacy is horrid. He did do some things in San Francisco and Los Angeles that were exemplary, but as a whole, by the time he moved the congregation out there, he was losing his mind to paranoia and drug use. This is not new information. What is new is the depth that Guinn goes to portraying Jones in a non-judgmental light. Even though Jones does despicable things in California (to the point to where by the time he reaches Guyana, he is almost ruined anyway), Guinn does not bat an eye as he tells the story. This objectivity makes Guinn's book feel like an authority, like "I don't have a horse in this race. I'm just stating the facts." This lack of skewed view makes "The Road to Jonestown" a marvelous explanation. In the end, the story is heartbreaking. Even though I have watched the films, read other books, and looked up Jonestown on the internet, the reality of it all is heartbreaking. I will say that reading Guinn's description of the end was enough to bring a tear to my eye. Maybe because it felt like I was actually part of the Peoples Temple by this time, that through this book, I had intimate knowledge of where everything went wrong and my friends were now dying with Jim Jones, or maybe it was because with such a vivid description of everything, I was emotionally attached to the story, something that I had never felt before reading Guinn's version. "Road to Jonestown" is incredible, and I am still heartbroken for the 900 plus people that died that day and all of the family that still survives.

This book was absolutely gripping and very interesting. Like many I only knew ‘the end’ of this story from the worldwide newspaper headlines in 1978 of the massacre/suicide in the jungle. I was a teenager at the time but remember it well.

I have always been interested and intrigued about why people follow leaders who so many consider dubious. Whether it's the Moonies, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (the 'orange people’), Children of God, Scientologists and many others. This book tells a very credible and fascinating story of Jim Jones from starting out in Indiana where he set up a church which was intended to be completely inclusive and reach out of all who were oppressed and struggling - whether due to racial prejudice, poverty, illness, disability or being elderly and vulnerable.

Jim Jones did this very well, and seemingly with genuine concern and care for everyone. It is easy to see why he gained so many followers. As the years went on he got more strange or mentally ill or maybe just evil? It’s hard to say. He’s still quite an enigma in my mind.

I had no idea of the background to the Peoples Temple and the fact that it started in Indiana, then moved to Ukiah in northern California. Then had big centres in L.A. and San Francisco before a large number of the group moved to Guyana and Jonestown.

It’s a long book but so well written and researched. It’s left me wanting to know a lot more about the survivors in particular. And those who left the church or just escaped before, or even on the fateful day, of November 18th 1978. Jeff Guinn has got the balance of writing versus research/references perfectly. It’s very readable without getting bogged down in quotes which investigative books like this sometimes are. This book will stay with me for a long time and I will also read what I can find online around it.

I have read several books about Jim Jones, but none of them have provided to level of information on his early life that this book does. Immensely readable, the first two thirds are a real revelation making sense of one of the strangest events in recent history. Becauce so much has been written about the last years of the zpeoples Temple, the last third of the book were less gripping for me, but I am sure that most of the audiance has not read extensively on the subject.

You probably know the expression... "don't drink the Kool-Aid." You may not know it was actually a cheap knock off called "flavor-aid" laced with cyanide that hundreds of people were forced to drink under threat of armed guards that fateful day in a South American jungle. Years ago I saw a short documentary on Jim Jones, but until reading this book I never knew the road to Jonestown was paved with good intentions. The Peoples Temple began with like minded people who wanted only to help the downtrodden, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Elderly people were housed in nursing homes by followers of Jim Jones where even if they could not afford to pay, were given care that met or exceeded state standards. Young people were given college educations that they never could have paid for on their own. They were made to feel that Jim Jones truly cared about them, and at first maybe he did. Then it all began to go horribly wrong. This detailed and factual account begins before Jim Jones was even born to a negligent mother who wouldn't allow him to be in the house when she wasn't home, and a sickly father who was too weak to stand up to her. It ends with the aftermath of murder and suicide that took 918 lives. If you ever wondered why or how so many people could allow themselves to be led astray this is the book for you. 5 stars from me.

Very well researched. This book shows the slow progression of the life of Jim Jones to become the cult-like figure he became. Readers that are familiar with the Jonestown tragedy will learn details about Jones that they may have not known. I found it fascinating to read.

Growing up, I had always heard the phrase, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," but I had no idea where the phrase came from.  As many idioms, I never thought too much about where it originated until I read The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn and now the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.

On November 18, 1978 the largest mass murder-suicide in American history occurred and 918 Americans lost their lives that day all because of one man, Jim Jones.

It has been 40 years since the Peoples Temple and Jonestown existed and Jeff Guinn really did his homework.  This book is incredibly well researched and leaves no questions about Jim Jones as a person, how the Peoples Temple came to be, and their gruesome demise.

At times, this book was extremely hard to read.  There are several situations in regards to Jim Jones sexual conquests which left me sickened and the obscenities from numerous quotes of people interviewed were hard to read as well.  The author is an incredible writer and paints the picture so vividly that I caught myself several times audibly voicing my disgust at certain parts. 

I was instantly fascinated by this story and absorbed this book in a matter of days.  The entire time I was reading I continued to wonder how so many people could be duped into believing this man.  My heart went out to all those people that were there to genuinely help make this world a better place.  They fought for civil rights and equality and many followers believed they were doing God's work.

Jeff Guinn does an amazing job of pulling you into the story.  The many quotes from eye-witnesses puts you there in the group which is both fascinating and disturbing.  This story is definitely not for the squeamish. 

If you've ever wanted to know the whole story behind Jim Jones and Jonestown this is hands down the book to read.  "Why did this have to happen?" is the question that continues to run through my mind after reading this horribly sad story.  The fact is, it didn't have to happen.  Jim Jones had several things that happened that continued to put pressure on him and People Temple.  These occurrences in Jim's drug-hazed and increasingly paranoid mind made him feel like he had no choice and his followers clearly had no choice.  If he was going down everyone was going down with him.  And sadly they did.

I was totally interested in reading this book. I was in my teens when this story was in the news so of course I had questions. How does someone get this much power? What is wrong with someone that they would get so caught up in obvious crazy and evil? Not all my questions were answered but there was a lot of info. in this book that I had never heard or even thought of. The why and how this man got to the point he did. Really informative but also scary that this could happen again

I chose to read this book because I didn't really know a lot about the Peoples Temple. All I really knew was that they were a cult, they moved their family to Guyana, they killed Senator Leo Ryan and several media when they tried to interfere and 900 of men, women and children drank the kool-aid and died.

This book (I had no idea it was as long as it was) definitely was well researched. There was a lot of information included in this book. I am going to keep my personal opinions to myself regarding Jim Jones and his followers.

I do have to say that when I looked down at my Kindle and saw that the reading time was expected to be 16 hours, I was like "what?". Then there was one time when the book started naming people and they named like 10 people (not really the main people but others) and I thought if they are naming all 900, I'm skipping a lot of pages. However, the book did not do that.

I think for the most part, I found the book interesting. It was amazing that one man could get so many people to follow his lead. They knew his healing abilities were a joke.

This was a most informative book of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. I found it very interesting, very shocking and very sad.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I've always been fascinated by this subject and was glad to have another book in my library detailing this in such length.

This is an incredibly well researched book. The author did many interviews and must have spent a great deal of time researching. There was very detailed information about the life of Jim Jones before he started The Peoples Temple and his shenanigans while running the church. Of course, this level of detail led to a quite long book but it was mostly fascinating.

I knew the basics of Jonestown and what happened there. I knew very little of Jim Jones and what he did before. I learned a great deal of information about Jones and his family. The book starts with his parents and their lives growing up, then goes into Jim’s childhood. The reader sees how he got ideas about starting a church and how he went about recruiting followers. There were points in the book where I was very conflicted in my feelings about Jim Jones. I’ve always thought that he was a completely horrible person whose only claim to fame was getting over 900 people to die for him. When I read about his help of lower income and minority groups in Indianapolis. I couldn’t figure out how such a horrible person could do so much good in the fight for civil rights. I actually started to think that maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as I originally thought. Continuing on in the book took me right back to my original thought. Although he did many great things in Indianapolis for civil rights and the poor, his bad acts far outweigh the good he did. I was completely amazed at all of the appalling things he did to his followers, and yet they continued to follow. It’s truly frightening.

This book is not a light ready. It is very heavy material. It took me approximately 2 weeks after finishing to sit down and write this review. I had to give my brain and my sanity a break from Jim Jones. He was a horrifyingly fascinating person but I needed to get him out of my head. This book was very informative and interesting. My only complaint is at times it seemed like there was too much detail. There were areas that were more specific than I felt was necessary and at times the author would toe the line between interesting and too much information. Specifics were brought up about people that didn’t always pop back into the story at a later point in time. With the large cast of characters, it got difficult to keep track of who’s who so adding in specifics about people that we don’t see again just makes things more confusing. It was a big enough complaint that I brought it up to people I was discussing the book with, but not enough to detract much from my overall enjoyment. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the topic of Jones, or cult leaders, or true crime in general.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Great book, new information. Was very interesting the in depth view of Jone's family and upbringing. And of all the activities that went on in Jonestown and leading up to the suicides. I really enjoyed the book and how it was organized and written. A frightening story of how someone that really wasn't very stable was able to amass wealth and fool many people.

This is an excellent reporting of Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple. Guinn has researched and interviewed in great depth to provide a complete account of Jim Jones, his upbringing, and his ultimate downfall. I read this book with amazement that someone like Jones could convince seemingly intelligent people to follow him no matter the cost. 918 people died that day in November 1978, most willingly. This story is sad and chilling.

I've been reading and thinking about Jim Jones for almost two weeks. 'The poor country boy who'd wanted so badly to be important." The Road to Jonestown is an all consuming, well researched horror story that, sadly, is true.

Jeff Guinn is now my favorite non-fiction writer. He has taken a story of greed and manipulation and turned it into a readable and fascinating book.

There were hints, from his youth, that Jim Jones was different. He knew how to manipulate people and how to get exactly what he wanted. On the surface, Jones's message of equality and community weren't bad things. Social programs and racial integration are all things that we almost take for granted. (The irony of writing this review on Dr. Martin Luther King Day is not lost on me.)

The book exhaustively covers everything. EVERYTHING. From Indiana, to California and finally to Guyana. From Jim's many affairs, to the many adopted children. The money, the political ties, the celebrities. The Jonestown settlement and the end of over 900 lives.

Was Jim Jones always bad or did he get lost in the money, greed, sex and drugs that his popularity and manipulation brought to him?

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.