A Thousand Lives
Books | History / Social History
3.9
Julia Scheeres
In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. As Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers leaned on each other to recapture the sense of equality that had drawn them to his church. But even as the congregation thrived, Jones made it increasingly difficult for members to leave. By the time Jones moved his congregation to a remote jungle in Guyana and the US government began to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late. A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from tens of thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.
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Author
Julia Scheeres
Pages
320
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2011-10-11
ISBN
145162896X 9781451628968
Ratings
Google: 4.5
Community ReviewsSee all
"Chilled me to the bone, to watch how Jones lied and manipulated the truth and brainwashed these people and imprisoned them in Jonestown. "How terribly they were betrayed", indeed. <br/><br/>I devour books like this because I want to learn about something that I was too young or emotionally uninvolved with, at the time, to care about or understand. Jones's rantings and control and suggestive mindpower were so overwhelming that it's a wonder ANYone refused to drink, hid, and got out alive. <br/><br/>I read this in ebook format, so I didn't see the photo inserts until the end pages....I could only stop and stare at a few and feel utter wonderment and sadness about how they were duped by this madman. <br/><br/>So so sad. <br/><br/>UPDATE: I listened to the final audio recording from Jonestown; it's called the Death Tape. It captures the moments before and during the koolaid. You hear what people say, you hear the babies crying in the background as the poison begins to work...Very surreal. And to hear Jones' voice in the flesh, so to speak, is equally creepy. Egging the people on. Demanding it - saying there was no other choice. Revolutionary suicide was to be embraced! And he either had a lisp or was just as high as a kite for all the slurred speech that was going on. Probably high. His autopsy showed that he had been a long-time abuser of barbituates. <br/><br/>Absolute lunacy."
Summer Taylor
"If I were to choose a book to introduce the tragic Jonestown story to someone who knew little or nothing about it, this would be the one. Several members of the Peoples Temple of various ages and backgrounds are at the center of the narrative. You grow to care about them and empathize with their pain and desperation, which makes it difficult when you find out not all of them escaped Jonestown. As the book reaches its climax, you will likely find yourself shedding some tears. I know I did."
Patricia Robinson