This is the definitive work on the Guyana tragedy when on November 18, 1978, 913 followers of a captivating American preacher named Reverend Jim Jones and members of the People's Temple cult joined in a mass suicide, drinking poison (or having it injected into them) and lying down quietly to die together. Through the Freedom of Information Act, author James Reston, Jr. obtained more than 800 hours of tape recordings made in the jungle. Reston chronicles the descent into madness of the cult leader, the Reverend Jim Jones. How could this have happened and why? Who was Jim Jones and what were his techniques? What was the shape of his descent into barbarism in the jungle? Who were his followers and what was the nature of their choice, if any, when Jones proposed that they all die together? - Publisher.