Jonestown Remembered is a poem about those who lost their lives as a result of the machinations of one individual who sought to direct the lives of some 912 persons in an isolated region of Guyana during the period of 1976 to 1978. Having formed the Peoples Temple in California, he transferred his activities to a country that was anxious to accommodate him without reserve or supervision. His name was Jim Jones. He felt that his view on how life was to be lived was unique and admired the socialist ideology. But all was not well with the administration of the community, which eventually climaxed with the deaths by suicide and murder of all its members save a few who had escaped. The poem seeks to recount the trials of the occupants of the Temple, their sense of abandonment at having been removed from the comfort and camaraderie of their friends, and their feelings of impotence to do anything about it. But still, for some, this experience was a deliverance from a much worse condition of life that they had experienced in the US. These felt that they owed allegiance to their leader, who had made their lives worthwhile for the first time. The poem seeks to explore both these responses and how the final sacrifice or deliverance was accomplished. Other poems of tragic loss are included in the book that suggests that life is not always a bed of roses; that the joy and happiness derived from love is often a prelude to tragedy and sorrow. That the love and contentment derived from a life well spent will come to an end, inevitably, with the final parting, and loved ones are left in their solitude.

In recounting the fascinating, intersecting stories of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong. November 1978. Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transformed into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk faked hate crimes, outed friends, and falsely claimed that the US Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and a US Navy ship named after him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love.

In this haunting and riveting firsthand account, a survivor of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple opens up the shadowy world of cults and shows how anyone can fall under their spell. "A suspenseful tale of escape that reads like a satisfying thriller.... The most important personal testimony to emerge from the Jonestown tragedy." —Chicago Tribune A high-level member of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple for seven years, Deborah Layton escaped his infamous commune in the Guyanese jungle, leaving behind her mother, her older brother, and many friends. She returned to the United States with warnings of impending disaster, but her pleas for help fell on skeptical ears, and shortly thereafter, in November 1978, the Jonestown massacre shocked the world. Seductive Poison is both an unflinching historical document and a suspenseful story of intrigue, power, and murder.

"Sometimes that's all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time." These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin's 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture—with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging—Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alternative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.

A portrait of the cult leader behind the Jonestown Massacre examines his personal life, from his extramarital affairs and drug use to his fraudulent faith healing practices and his decision to move his followers to Guyana, sharing new details about the events leading to the 1978 tragedy.

A study of the People's Temple written with compassion and understanding, with special focus on the surviving family members of two of the victims. This work seeks to dispel the bizarre image propagated by the media.

A collection of fifteen essays by persons who were touched in some way by the mass deaths in Guyana. The volume includes reflections by former Peoples Temple members, insights by psychologists and counsellors, and confessions by relatives vividly reveal what happened to individuals in the decade following November 18, 1978.