Product Description

More than a quarter of a century after the fall of Peoples Temple, in which the world witnessed the devastating loss of over nine hundred lives—including those of Congressman Leo J. Ryan and several journalists—the tragedy of Jonestown continues to mystify. In a sensitive account that traces the rise and fall of the idealistic community movement that preceded the deaths at Jonestown, Denice Stephenson uses letters, oral histories, journal entries, and other original documents—many published here for the first time—to bring this inexplicable event into a very personal and human perspective.

-Coincides with the premiere of the new play "The Peoples Temple" by writer/director Leigh Fondakowski (The Laramie Project)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #568310 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04
• Released on: 2005-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 171 pages

About the Author
Denice Stephenson is a special project archivist for the Peoples Temple Collection at the California Historical Society. Since 2000, she has provided assistance to researchers for family, scholarly, and media projects related to Jonestown and the Peoples Temple. She lives in San Francisco.

Customer Reviews

Dear People
I think Jonestown survivor Michael Carter sums it up quite nicely near the end of "Dear People: Remembering Jonestown." He says "I have had the good fortune to meet a number of wonderful people during my lifetime, but I have never encountered such a concentration of outstanding human beings as I did in Peoples Temple. When I hear 'drinking the Kool-Aid,', I will continue to remember their dedication for what they believed in. It is easy for people to believe that we were mindless and spineless, but nothing could be further from the truth. I hope that someday there will be a few more people who will understand what depths are attached to such a trivial statement." If you have only a casual interest in the story of Jim Jones and Jonestown, it's easy to overlook the fact that Jonestown was populated by hundreds of wonderful, dedicated, hardworking, loving human beings. Denice Stephenson needs to be commended for doing a great job editing "Dear People", sifting through what I'm sure is a myriad of archives at the California Historical Society, and showing us the human side of this fascinating story. We're shown that there's so much more to the story than a mad dictator and his following of zombies drinking tainted Kool Aid. This book would be a great place to start if you want to learn about Jim Jones, his followers, Jonestown, and the unfortunate end.

fascinating
After reading Seductive Poison, a powerful insider's look into the organization, I wanted to get another perspective. Read in conjunction, these two books allow us to peer inside the mind and thoughts of those innocent folks who believed they were joining something good and meaningful.

I highly recommend both.

Historical Perspective
I purchased several books related to Jonestown and the Peoples Temple. This was the first book I read beofre reading the others. This book helped me understand the historical aspects of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. The information provided in this book is from the historical archives located in California. Although this is a "history" based book (not a memoir), it helped prepare me to understand and fully appreciate the other books I read on Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. This is a must read for historical facts!