
Road to Jonestown
Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $22.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
George Newbern
-
By:
-
Jeff Guinn
The definitive story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, the largest murder-suicide in American history, by the New York Times bestselling author of Manson.
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his early days as an idealistic minister to a secret life of extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing, before the fateful decision to move almost a thousand 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 nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred 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’s 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’s orders. The Road to Jonestown is “the most complete picture to date of this tragic saga, and of the man who engineered it…The result is a disturbing portrait of evil—and a compassionate memorial to those taken in by Jones’s malign charisma” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
2018 Edgar Award Finalist—Best Fact Crime
“A thoroughly readable, thoroughly chilling account of a brilliant con man and his all-too vulnerable prey” (The Boston Globe)
People who viewed this also viewed...


















Listening to this, I was able to empathize, for perhaps the first time, with cult followers rather than just scornfully dismissing them as lunatics. There was a time when I might well have been very susceptible to Jones’ curious mix of religion, blasphemy, economic theory, and social principles.
As for the writing, certain minor facts are repeated, repeated, and then repeated again. A small annoyance.
I disliked the narration. The reader rather randomly punches at certain words, whether they merit being emphasized or not. Kind of like an inexperienced news anchor at your local station. It comes out sounding like the reader is going for a verbal style rather than letting the performance come from an understanding of what is being read.
Illuminating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Substantively well done
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
very informative and entertaining
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Exhaustively researched and impeccably compiled. There was one spot, and only one, where the characters weren't clear. Jim's lawyers and and the dude who was feeding his paranoia, more background on them would have been helpful.
Exhaustive
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Long winded but..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Overall quite enjoyable and worth the listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great research. The reader does very well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Like a Documentary
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good perspective
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A ridiculous, dangerous, socialist lunatic!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.