If we are to learn anything of value from the murders and mass suicide at Jonestown, its history must be salvaged from popular myths, which are little more than superficial atrocity tales. In this superb cultural history, John R. Hall presents a reasoned analysis of the meaning of Jonestown: why it happened and how it is tied to our history as a nation, our ideals, our practices, and the tensions of modern culture. Hall deflates the myths of Jonestown by exploring the social character of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple - how much of what transpired was unique to the group and its leader and how much can be explained by reference to wider social processes? The book begins by examining the cultural origins of Jonestown: Who was Jim Jones? Where did he get his ideas and followers? How was his Peoples Temple established? The organizational base of the Temple is analyzed through relevant comparisons with modern institutionalized practices in economics, bureaucracy, social control, public relations, and power. The author then traces the situational causes of the Temple's conflict with its detractors, the collective migration to Guyana, and the mass suicide.
By assessing the degree to which the Peoples Temple was truly an aberration or simply an exaggeration of our society's contradictions, the author deepens our understanding of a modern scape-goat.