Publications and Research

• John R. Hall’s book Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan (co-authored with Philip D. Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh) includes a chapter on Peoples Temple in its analysis of violence in New Religious Movements (Routledge, 2000)…

• Catherine Wessinger edited Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (SUNY, 2000), which includes a chapter on Peoples Temple by Rebecca Moore titled, “‘American as Cherry Pie:’ Peoples Temple and Violence in America.” Wessinger’s book How the Millennium Comes Violently (Seven Bridges Press, 1999) became available this year and was reviewed by a panel at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November…

Nova Religio, the journal of alternative and emergent religions, published an article by Rebecca Moore, titled “Is the Canon on Jonestown Closed” in the October 2000 issue. The article looks at the literature on Peoples Temple that has been published in the last ten years…

• Richard Williams, an independent researcher in North Carolina, is studying the ideological, political, and possible direct connections between Peoples Temple, MOVE, and the Symbionese Liberation Army…

• Jon Stone (UC Berkeley) developed an article on Pentecostalism and utopianism which included Peoples Temple, and plans to make it part of a book that looks at popular religions in California in the 20th Century…

• Matthew Thomas Farrell’s article, “Jonestown: A Skeptic’s Perspective” which analyzes the tape of Jonestown’s final hour in the context of various conspiracy theories about Jones’s CIA connections was originally in the World Domination Update, a newsletter which, as Farrell describes it, “purports to expose various conspiracies and control groups.” Farrell’s e-mail address is: saint@extremezone.com.