Road to Jonestown

I read Jeff Guinn's book about Charles Manson a few years ago and enjoyed it so much I decided to give his newest book about the Reverend Jim Jones and Jonestown a try. I didn't know much about Jonestown, I've never read anything about it. Guinn did an excellent job of showing how easy it was for Jones to attract followers at first: he truly was good. His intentions were good. He wanted to help the sick and the weak, the poor and the hungry. He was all about racial equality (in the 1950s), adopting Korean and African American children, preaching about how important integration was. He was, at heart, a socialist more than a man of God. Sure, he used chicanery to attract new followers, but his loyal devotees forgave him these underhanded tricks because it was all in the name of the greater good. Somewhere along the way he changed, and it was so subtle even most of his followers didn't notice until it was too late. He became greedy, lustful, smitten with the idea that he really was God. He was using drugs, paranoid that the government was out to get him. He told his followers they were going to be persecuted, bombed, killed, if they didn't escape, and so many of them fled with him to Guyana, where over 900 people, including many infants and children, died in a mass murder/suicide at Jones's orders. It was just heartbreaking, but fascinating.