Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple

"As one of a few survivors, I continue to learn details and facts that were hidden from me. I learned many new details when I read the book. An ever-growing group is collaborating to put the pieces together in a mosaic that will bring together the truest picture we can make. Rebecca's book will be one of the cornerstones used to build an understanding of the facts, not the media blitz, and not a simplistic view of the horror of the ending. Those who lost their lives in Guyana and those whose lives were decimated here in the United States deserve more than that, and Rebecca articulately puts the facts together to so that we can envision and understand the community as it lived." -- Laura Johnston Kohl Jonestown and Peoples Temple survivor "Rebecca Moore provides the fullest account we have of the career of Peoples Temple. In a sympathetic but critical manner, she charts its beginnings in Indianapolis, its transformations in California, the tragic events at Jonestown in the Guyanese jungle, and the afterlives of Peoples Temple in American cultural memory. Drawing on scholarly and popular sources, interviews, archives, and a trove of materials released by the U. S. government in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, she tells a rich and detailed story that captures both the horror and humanity of Peoples Temple. This is the place to start for anyone interested in Peoples Temple, Jim Jones, or Jonestown." -- Eugene V. Gallagher Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies, Connecticut College "Rebecca Moore's thoughtful, balanced book makes a significant contribution to recent scholarship aimed at redressing the sensationalism of many previous accounts of Peoples Temple and Jonestown. This book deepens our understanding of the tragedy of Jonestown by refusing to reduce the story to that single ending. This eye to human complexity also guides the book into the present, examining the lives of survivors, the state of current research and scholarship, and the figure of Peoples Temple as it appears in contemporary artistic and cultural work. Moore also provides the reader with enough resources to open a multitude of avenues to further research. Accessible to the student historian, her perspective prompts wide-ranging and important questions on our contemporary practices and ways of thinking about religion, community, and memory." -- Tanya Hollis Archivist/Manuscripts Librarian, California Historical Society