Thanks to Simon & Schuster along with NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review.

I cannot believe it has been 30 years since the Waco shootout with the Branch Davidians, and Jeff Guinn has done an excellent job of researching and detailing this entire saga. We get the point of view from AFT and FBI, as well as surviving members of the Davidians. We see a lot of missteps by one and all, as well as an underarmed group of federal agents who walked into a massive firefight. Could all of this carnage been avoided? Probably not, since David Koresh had amassed a massive stockpile of weapons and was bound to keep out any governmental interference. A cautionary tale that makes you feel sad that this tragedy occurred in the first place!

Great and penetrating and through without being judge mental and overbearing. I like that Guinn lets the readers do the thinking, and this is a really complex story.

If you want to know something about a subject and this man has written about it, get the book. This was so well researched and written. I love his books. True Crime Genius.

Most of us remember the Waco disaster! If not this is the book to go to explain the events and people that lead up to this tragedy! We never must forget the what the government’s overreach can lead to! A must read for the youth!

If Jeff Guinn writes a book about a charismatic leader of a group of people, I'm going to read it. Guinn's Road to Jonestown and Manson were both so thoroughly fleshed out and engaging, despite the fact that I'm not really interested in fringe groups in the way that a lot of people are.

Waco was just as well researched and written as the previous two in my opinion. With a breakdown of the timeline of events and how the Branch Davidian standoff happened, Guinn gives us new information and a compelling analysis. Guinn's book came out with a slate of other Waco books published around the 30th anniversary but this is the best I have read yet.

Sure to be a hit with fans of all types of non-fiction.

It all begins with disastrous errors on the part of the commanders, and plunges downhill from there. So begins this immersive look at the siege of Waco. Even though the events occurred 30 years ago new information has come to forward shedding light on the cult and the government attempts to end the stand off. More importantly Guinn ties in these events with the rise of the modern militia movement and the rise of conspiracy theories. This is a must read for those interested in current history.

Jeff Guinn has become one of my favorite true crime writers. The way he intertwines facts about historic events & people with an interesting narrative flow makes these points in time come alive.

The first quarter of the book, also my favorite portion of the book, goes into the history of the Branch Davidians and how the group was before & during the leadership of Koresh.

The many blunders that were made by the ATF in the lead up to the 51-day standoff and siege were chronicled and as a reader, armed with foresight, you can't help but be awestruck by some of the choices that were made.

The ending of the book briefly points out the effect that Waco has had in the United States. A distrust of government, armed civilian militias, and radicalization are all realities and issues we still deal with. I would have liked it if the author had gone further with his analysis of Waco's lasting legacy.

I give Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage by Jeff Guinn ⭐⭐⭐✨ (3.75 stars - Rounded up to 4 stars for NetGalley)

Big thanks to Simon and Schuster NetGalley & Jeff Guinn for this e-ARC. Waco is out NOW!

4 out of 5

Waco by Jeff Guinn is a Non-Fiction account concerning the tragedy of the standoff between the ATF/FBI and the Brand Davidians in Waco Texas in 1993.

It starts with the beginnings of the religious group as it splinters from the Seventh Day Adventists, the transformation of Vernon Howell into David Koresh and how the US Government reacts to the information presented by ex-members and a concerned community.

Very hard to put down and highly recommended!

Guinn never disappoints!

Before picking up this book, I knew next to nothing about the Waco fiasco. It is a great read. The storytelling flows nicely and keeps your attention. I could not put this book down!

The rich detail & vivid descriptions made me feel as if I were right there. What a fantastic, informative read.

I requested this book on the advice of a reporter from the Waco Tribune-Herald and I was not disappointed. I remember this event from my youth, but only through the lens of the news coverage at the time. The recent Netflix documentary revived my interest and this book answered every question I could ever have had about what happened, didn't happen and might have happened 30 years ago. This is my first Guinn book, but it is easy to see why he so so popular. His writing is clear, objective and thorough. His research is immaculate, with many primary and secondary sources and a vast array of personal interviews that give this retelling depth and perspective. His fully orbed account makes you feel like you were in the compound with the Davidians and in the command post with the federal agents.

If there is one book you ever read on this event, make it Guinn's harrowing narrative of the events that led up to and came out of the Waco siege in the spring of 1993.

I am old enough to remember when Waco happened and hadn't really thought much about it since watching it live on TV when it happened. However I was young and definitely didn't understand the nuance of the situation nor did I understand all of the ways the Branch Davidians failed their people and the way the government failed the Branch Davidians and their own forces. This books takes a close look at the failures on all sides and what really happened during those tense, tragic days. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it necessarily but I do think it's a necessary reflection on abuses of power on all sides. Most chilling and something I wasn't aware of is that Timothy McVeigh was there that day. That picture still haunts me.

This is a really well written and readable book about Waco. The author reaches back to the roots of the Branch Davidians and their beliefs and how the catastrophe at Waco happened. He writes about the stand off in detail and how Waco continues to influence events in the United States today. Well worth the time.

To preface this review: Reading this book was one of my first in-depth personal explorations of the incident at Waco.

Jeff Guinn has provided a detailed look at the dramatic event that has come to be known simply as Waco. I appreciated that the bulk of this book was dedicated to setting the scene. There is a lot of detail about the Branch Davidians, their beliefs, and their history. This was helpful in understanding the functionality of the group and the rationale (however flawed) behind their actions. On the opposite end of the spectrum, it also helped to have some context for the ATF and their political position, which informed their motivations for actions that were taken against the Branch Davidians.

'Waco' is a good primer on the event that most people in America have heard of, but may not know many details about. From my perspective, it appeared to be a balanced and nuanced look that attempted to show both sides as fairly and neutrally as possible.

This is a comprehensive book about the 51 day long siege of the Branch Davidian complex outside of Waco, Texas that took place in early 1993. I've long been fascinated by cults and high control religious groups, and I've been curious about this one for a while. I was pretty excited to get an e-ARC of it from Simon & Schuster through Netgalley so I could learn more. Boy did I ever! The book starts at the beginning with the formation of the Branch Davidian movement (long before David Koresh), then that particular branch of it and David Koresh himself. While the beginning dragged, it was foundational material to understanding the rest of the book. Once the siege began, I couldn't put it down. It was thrilling, and just thoroughly fascinating - thankfully not going through every day of the siege but highlighting the important moments. The wrap up chapter could have been better, it didn't talk enough about the long term impact of this siege in my opinion. Also, I thankfully was reading this on my Kindle because there are a lot of people that are mentioned and I appreciated being able to search back for them. But otherwise a really worthwhile read, especially if you are also curious about cults.

... there was this group think: “Yeah, gotta get the bad guys.” Testosterone takes over the mind, and logic is no longer in the equation. – Farris Rookstool III, an FBI analyst present at the siege of the Branch Davidian compound (Kindle location 4400 of this book)

This year is the 30th anniversary of the siege of the Branch Davidian compound. Anniversaries that are multiples of 10 bring a rash of reconsiderations and renarration, not just in print form, like this one, but in all media – soon there will be a new three-part documentary, promising never-before-seen videos from the botched invasion and subsequent siege from Netflix and a five-episode dramatization from Showtime, promising to illustrate the link between the outcome of the Branch Davidian siege to subsequent acts of militia violence, like the Oklahoma City bombing and the January 6th storming of the US Capitol.

I’ve read some comments on the internet that said, in summary, that David Koresh was a creepy pedophile who deserved what he got. The accusation that he was a pedophile was, by virtually any definition, proven true by the testimony (in this book and elsewhere) of many – as well as by the resulting children of his underage liaisons. Even the second part of the above statement (“he deserved what he got” – that is, death) is difficult to argue with.

The problem is: a lot of people who did NOT deserve what David Koresh got, nevertheless got what Koresh got. But after some ATF agents were killed in the initial assault, there was very little thought given to the idea that some of the people in the compound (particularly women and children) deserved to be saved. It’s hard to condemn law enforcement too harshly – apparently, when Koresh commanded his followers to use weapons, all of them who were physically able did so, when the time came.

The job of law enforcement is always very difficult, but it’s hard not to be astonished by the combination of arrogance and incompetence which law enforcement displayed throughout this sorry episode, especially (but not exclusively) by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). This agency was, even before this disaster, treated like the ugly stepchild of Federal Law Enforcement. The desire to alter this image in time for government budget-making season is one of the reasons that everything was allowed to go so disastrously wrong.

However, in the end, they confirmed their reputation.

The ATF moved into a house across the street from the Branch Davidian compound to do surveillance prior to the assault. Their flimsy story was that the several too-old-for-college men suddenly resident therein were students at a local university. Apparently, the ATF didn’t feel the need to alter the haircuts, behavior, etc., that identified them clearly as law enforcement. On the other hand, when the bureau decided to send in a man disguised as a UPS driver to see what he could see, the single ATF agent who had grown his hair long for previous undercover work was chosen for the job, even though UPS drivers at this time all wore their hair short. The agent offered to cut his hair, but his supervisors told him not to bother (location 2211). Because the Branch Davidians were under the spell of a psychopath, law enforcement apparently felt they were too dim to interpret the evidence of their own eyes.

And don’t even get me started about operational security – the ATF invasion of the Branch Davidian compound couldn’t have been less of a surprise if the Davidians had been notified by skywriting and singing telegram.

The book lovingly details the long string of headache-inducing missteps and institutional arrogance before and after the initial ATF raid. Things don’t improve much when the FBI takes over the operation. By this point, no one was in the mood to participate in Koresh’s fantasy of being a divine messenger, to be indulged while awaiting further instructions from God. Some experts in Koresh’s particular brand of end-times thinking attempted to intercede, perhaps hoping they’d prevent a disaster. They didn’t.

One of the reasons I think this is a good book is that the people who love a nice, simple, pat response to a tragedy – whether it’s “he got what he deserved” crowd, the law and order crowd, or “this is criminal overreach by a repressive government” crowd – will not be very happy with this narrative as written. That’s the problem with facts, they are messy, they point in different directions, they defy easy answers. That’s why people ignore them.

Chapter 1 of this book narrates the founding, in the 1840s, of the Seventh Day Adventists, of which the Branch Davidians are an offshoot. Another book that I have read which tells this story is The Delusions Of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by William J. Bernstein. It would be interesting to compare them. Of the two, this book is more respectful of the Seventh Day Adventists.

Occasionally, I glanced at the footnotes of this book. I was motivated to look at a few of the sources cited therein. Here are two interesting ones, available for free on the internet: (1) Malcolm Gladwell’s “Sacred and Profane: How Not to Negotiate with Believers” from the March 24, 2014, edition of the New Yorker. It is available on the New Yorker website. The New Yorker website has a paywall which appears after you visit the site a few times. There is an unpaywalled version of the same article at

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/university-of-saint-joseph-ct/moral-issues-to-healthcare/waco-incident-sacred-and-profane-malcolm-gladwell/34823413

which is easily readable except for the fact that, for some reason, all instances of the apostrophe are replaced with the number 9. It also may be downloaded. (2) A 2003 interview with Jayne Docherty, a professor of conflict studies and author of Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table at

https://www.beyondintractability.org/audiodisplay/docherty-j

I received a free electronic advance copy of this book to review from Simon and Schuster via Netgalley.

Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage by Jeff Guinn was fascinating to read. I remember this event when it happened and it was interesting to get a bigger insight as to how it all went down..
Four stars.

Holy fascinating! This isn't my first Guinn book, so I knew I was in for a treat, but he delivered. I learned so much. This was like watching an excellent documentary as it reads narratively. I'm so happy he heard from the actual people there. That rarely happens with the FBI. I highly recommend!

Growing up Baptist in Texas, "Waco" only ever referred to one thing - Baylor! It was a shock to me years later that most people associate it with Koresh and the Branch Davidians. This book provides a really straightforward accounting of events. I particularly appreciated the focus on the religion itself and how it morphed through time. However, my biggest issue with this book is that we are 30 years removed from this event and it feels like there should have been a stronger point of view or connection to why this event still matters and the ripple effects it has had. That is technically in there but it is shoved at the end and not very clear. Overall, I would recommend to someone with very little knowledge of the siege, but if you are looking for a deeper reflection, this book isn't the right choice for you.

I remember sitting in the kitchen of the house I where I was a nanny, watching this unfold on TV until the brutal, fiery [and as you will find in this book], unnecessary end. I remember sitting there, watching the fire consume everything and I wept. I wept for the people inside, the children. I wept for the people who had died before [both FBI and Branch Davidians] the fire and I wept for the families who were left with only the memories of their loved ones and the aftermath.
I remember at the time thinking we were not getting the full story [I was correct] and wondered just what the government were playing at [HAD they not learned anything from Jonestown and Ruby Ridge? Apparently no]? All the questions I had then [and more] are answered in this book, THIRTY years later. Not sure why it has taken that long for the truth to come out, but here we are.

A note to clarify - I am, at no point, defending David Koresh. His idea of "religion" and his rough way of leading his "people" is absolutely not my cup of tea. Also, his willingness to go down in a blaze of glory with said people [including the 23 children that were still in the compound], because it is what he learned from the Bible and his being a prophet leans towards having, if nothing else, a serious "savior" complex, if not some sort of mental illness [though this has never been proved and is truly just my own opinion from what I have read of him]. That said, I think that the biggest mistake the FBI and ATF made [well, one of them anyway] was that they totally and completely underestimated him, refused to acknowledge the fact that DK was extremely gifted and knowledgeable [His ability to memorize and parse out the Bible was mind-boggling. I know many pastors of "traditional" churches who don't know as much about the bible as David Koresh did] and because of that, all that they did just made him dig in more, claim his convictions, and the result was death and destruction. The fact that the FBI/ATF refused to listen to the people who had gotten close to him, refused to call off the initial raid when it became evident that the element of surprise was gone, lied to both their bosses and the media [and therefore the American public] and worked as hard to antagonize David Koresh as they could..well, there are absolutely men from that day that have serious blood on their hand [the blood of the innocent children that died that day for sure]. They were asked to back off [due to those children] and they refused and what could have been a completely different situation, ended up with what we all now remember.

Something else to realize is, David Koresh truly believed his was the messiah/prophet that was going to lead his people into the glory of heaven. The people that lived on the compound truly believed that he was [it was interesting to read the end about the people who escaped, who still believe in DK and his preaching and believe 100% that when they die, they will be reunited with all who died that day] and unlike Jonestown, where many of the "followers" had to be forced to drink the poison at the end, the people that died that day, did so willingly. They believed this was what the Bible told them was going to happen, through the teaching of David Koresh. That was another way that the FBI/ATF completely underestimated him and the people. They never truly understood the people's level of belief, that they'd go willingly to their death and that the more the government men antagonized David Koresh, the more they drove him to that final act. They made the fatal mistake of not truly knowing their mark and went in blind. Such foolishness cost so many lives. One can only hope they learned something from this.

The aftermath is haunting. Some of the things discussed in this book put images in my head I never, ever needed there and I wept again, over and over, for the waste of it all. The epilogue is even more heartbreaking and I am left with massive book hangover and a heart that is hurting all over again for all that happened and all that was left.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jeff Guinn, and Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Precisely Detailed. Needs Better Bibliography. You know that time when a friend has already read an ARC of a book that somewhat interests you and you go on a cruise for your 40th birthday only to come back to an email from the publisher asking if you'd also like to ARC review the same book? A book that happens to be about an event that happened when you were 10 yrs old but which was overshadowed in your own memory by another, much larger and much more directly impactful event (The Storm of the Century in 1993), but you still remember some details of this event itself live? No? Only me? Ok. Well then.

For everyone *else*, this is actually a remarkably detailed book, as Guinn's histories tend to be (as evidenced by the only other book I've read from him - 2021's War On The Border). Indeed, while only 83% or so of this book is narrative - more on that momentarily - we don't actually begin the tale of the siege itself until around the 52% mark. Meaning over half of the actual narrative of the book focuses on detailed histories of everything that got us to that particular moment in time at that particular place with these particular players. We get an entire history of the Branch Davidian religion, including how it formed and some other offshoots that seem to have come to play to certain extents. We get a history of the ATF and what exactly it was dealing with in that moment (an embarrassing sex scandal and looming budget hearings, which were rarely 'friendly' in the best of times). We get a detailed history of this particular Branch Davidian organization and how it came to be exactly where it was and exactly in the state it was, both physically and mentally, including biographies of the man who came to claim the name "David Koresh" and earlier leaders of the group and their internal rivalries. We get all of this richly detailed setup...

And then we get a near second by second play by play of exactly what went down and when and by whom, told from both sides and clearly showing when the evidence seems to support one side or another and when each side differs in their views and exclusive claims. This is no celebration of the man who called himself "David Koresh", nor is it a celebration of the various police agencies and politicians and political appointees who executed the raid. Instead, it is a remarkably balanced look at just how these people came to be where they were and what happened when these two groups came to such explosive conflict. It is a remarkable look at how a clearly gifted orator could become so twisted in his own thinking - and use his gifts to twist the beliefs of so many, including some who continued in these beliefs long after the orator himself was dead. It is a remarkable look at the mistakes made by each side of the conflict and just how many points there were where history could have changed for a more peaceable outcome. It is truly a remarkable tale of the entire event seared into the American zeitgeist as simply "Waco".

And yet, getting back to the 83% narrative bit: It is specifically because the bibliography clocks in a touch short at 17% - 25-40% is a more normal bibliography length in my extensive experience with nonfiction ARCs - that I had to drop the overall rating by a single star. The tale told here is remarkable - but remarkable claims require remarkable evidence, and the cited evidence here needed to be more extensive, at least to this reader.

Still, this is absolutely a book every American should read and understand in full, as this truly was a seminal moment in American history, one that foretold much of what was to come over the next 30 years. Very much recommended.