Resources: Scholarly Resources
  
 
  • Ahlberg, Sture. Messianic Movements: A Comparative Analysis of the Sabbatians, the People's Temple and the Unification Church. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1986.
  • Anthony, Dick and Thomas Robbins. “Religious Totalism, Exemplary Dualism, and the Waco Tragedy.” In Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. Edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer. New York: Routledge, 1994.
  • Bromley, David G. and Anson D. Shupe, Jr.. Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981.
  • Chidester, David. “Rituals of Exclusion and the Jonestown Dead.”  Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56, no. 4 (Winter 1988): 681-702.
    • Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1988, 2003.
    • “Saving the Children by Killing Them: Redemptive Sacrifice in the Ideologies of Jim Jones and Ronald Reagan.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 1, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 177-201.
  • Hall, John R. “The Apocalypse at Jonestown.” In In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America. Edited by Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1981, pp. 171-190.
    • Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1987, 2004.
    • “Rituals of Exclusion and the Jonestown Dead.” Journal of the American Academy of Religions 56, no. 4 (1988): 681-702.
    • “Peoples Temple.” In America’s Alternative Religions. Edited by Timothy Miller. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York, 1995, pp. 303-311.
    • “Public Narratives and the Apocalyptic Sect: From Jonestown to Mt. Carmel.” In Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict. Edited by Stuart A. Wright. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 205-235
  • Hall, John R. and Philip Schuyler. “Apostasy, Apocalypse, and Religious Violence: An Exploratory Comparison of Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, and the Solar Temple.” In The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements. Edited by David G. Bromley. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998.
  • Hall, John R. with Philip D. Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh. Apocalpyse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. New York: Routledge, 2000.
  • Harding, Vincent. “My Lord, What a Mourning: Jonestown is America.” In The Other American Revolution, by Vincent Harding. Atlanta: Institute of the Black World, 1980.
  • Introvigne, Massimo . Idee che uccidono. Jonestown, Waco, il Tempio Solare. Milan: Pessano MIMEP-Docete, 1995.
  • Johnson, Doyle Paul. “Dilemma of Charismatic Leadership: The Case of The Peoples Temple.” Sociological Analysis 40 (1979): 315-323.
  • Lewis, Gordon K. “Gather with the Saints at the River:” The Jonestown Guyana Holocaust. Río Piedras: University of Puerto Rico, Institute of Caribbean Studies, 1978.
  • Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence H. Mamiya. “Daddy Jones and Father Divine: The Cult as Political Religion.” Religious Life 49 (1980): 6-23. (Reprinted in Moore, et al., Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America.)
  • Lindt, Gillian.  “Journeys to Jonestown: Accounts and Interpretations of the Rise and Demise of People’s Temple.”  Union Seminary Quarterly Review 37, nos. 1 & 2 (Fall-Winter 1981-1982): 159-174.
  • Levi, Kenneth, ed. Violence and Religious Commitment: Implications of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple Movement. University Park, Penn.: Penn State Press, 1982.
  • Melton, J. Gordon. Peoples Temple and Jim Jones: Broadening Our Perspective. New York: Garland, 1990.
  • Moore, Rebecca. “‘American as Cherry Pie:’ Peoples Temple and Violence in America.” In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases. Edited by Catherine Wessinger. Syracuse N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000, pp. 121-137. Available online.
    • “Drinking the Kool-Aid: The Cultural Transformation of a Tragedy.” Nova Religio 7, no. 2 (November 2003): 92-100. Available online.  
    • “Is the Canon on Jonestown Closed?” Nova Religio 4, no. 1 (October 2000): 7-27.
    • “Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories About Jonestown.” Journal of Popular Culture 36, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 200-220. Available online.
    • A Sympathetic History of Jonestown. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985.
  • Moore, Rebecca, Anthony B. Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer, eds. Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
  • Moore, Rebecca and Fielding M. McGehee, III, eds. New Religious Movements, Mass Suicide, and Peoples Temple: Scholarly Perspectives on a Tragedy. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.
    • eds. The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.
  • Mary McCormick Maaga. Hearing the Voices of Jonestown. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Chapter available online.
  • Pozzi, Enrico. Il Carisma malato. Il People’s Temple e il suicidio collettive di Jonestown. Naples: Liguori, 1992.
  • Richardson, James. “Peoples Temple and Jonestown: A Corrective Comparison and Critique.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19, no. 3 (1980): 239-255.
  • Robbins, Thomas. “Reconsidering Jonestown.” Religious Studies Review 15, no. 1 (January 1989): 32-37. (This article was expanded into “The Second Wave of Jonestown Literature,” noted below.)
    • “The Second Wave of Jonestown Literature: A Review Essay.” In New Religious Movements, Mass Suicide, and Peoples Temple: Scholarly Perspectives on a Tragedy. Edited by Rebecca Moore and Fielding M. McGehee, III. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989, pp 113-134.
  • Robbins, Thomas and Dick Anthony. “Sects and Violence: Factors Enhancing the Volatility of Marginal Religious Movements.” In Armageddon at Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict. Edited by Stuart A. Wright. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  • Smith, Archie Jr. “An Interpretation of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown: Implications for the Black Church.” PSR Bulletin Occasional Paper 58, no. 2 (February 1980). (Reprinted in Moore, et al., Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America.).
    • The Relational Self: Ethics and Therapy from a Black Church Perspective. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1982. (The last chapter discusses Peoples Temple.)
    • “We Need to Press Forward: Black Religion and Jonestown, Twenty Years Later,” published online 1998. [URL= http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Articles/smith.htm]
  • Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
  • Stephenson, Denice. Dear People: Remembering Jonestown. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2005.
  • Weightman, Judith. Making Sense of the Jonestown Suicides. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983.
  • Wessinger, Catherine. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000.

     

 

June 2005