A Thousand Lives, tragedy at Jonestown

NOTE: This blog entry originally appeared in November 2011

by Dan Bloom, producer

Since the fateful date of November 18, 1978, the story of Jim Jones, People’s Temple and the Jonestown disaster has lived in the collective cultural memory of Americans.

It would be emotionally trying for any researcher to pore over reams of FBI documents from Jonestown, and author Julia Scheeres has done just that, with diligence and professionalism. The result is her book A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown.

For more information about Julia Scheeres and background materials on Jonestown, visit JuliaScheeres.com

3 Replies to “A Thousand Lives, tragedy at Jonestown”

  1. It was interesting interview, however as someone who was born in Guyana, Julia's information on that country was not 100% accurate. First, the country was not a socialist one but more of a dictatorship. Jim Jones made a healthy donation to the then president, Forbes Burnham to be able to get access to that area in Guyana. Also, majority population in Guyana was never Afro Guyanese but rather Indo Guyanese. Perhaps because Georgetown's (the city and capital) was heavily Afro Guyanese, it might have appeared that the majority population was Afro Guyanese

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