The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, by Jeff Guinn, is a fascinating read. It is harrowing to watch as Jones begins his career of good deeds among the poor and disenfranchised to grow, by degrees, into a monster. Regardless of his motives, and Guinn shows us how difficult it is to understand a complex man like Jones, he cared deeply for social justice in the early years of Peoples Temple.
So, how went from this point to a mass suicide/murder in the jungle of
Guyana is the topic of this book. Guinn
explores how Jones the man and Jones the social mission were never separate. Like brutal leaders everywhere, the people
were only valuable in so far as they brought his vision to reality. When they failed to, their lives were
expandable. He is not so different than
Stalin, Mao, or Hitler. He just worked
on a smaller scale.
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