History 12 Reading Guide
From Utopia To Dystopia: People�s Temple [Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978]; Branch Davidians [Waco, Texas, April 1993]; Heaven�s Gate [San Diego, California, March 1997]
- Gairdner B. Moment, �From Utopia to Dystopia: The Jonestown Tragedy,� in Moment and Kraushaar, Utopias: the American experience (1980), 215-228. (e-reserve)
- John R. Hall, �Jonestown and Bishop Hill: Continuities and Disjunctures in Religious Conflict,� Communal Societies 8 (1988), 77-89. (e-reserve)
- For the Branch Davidians and/or Heaven�s Gate, search newspapers, magazines (Reader�s Guide to Periodic Literature), and/or the internet for information (use Fitzgerald�s journalistic model of investigation/inquiry).
Further reading:
- Doyle Paul Johnson, �Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership: The Case of the People�s Temple,� Sociological Analysis 40.4 (1979), 315-323.
Questions:
- Compare and contrast the People�s Temple, the Branch Davidians and Heaven�s Gate as both utopian and dystopian communities.
- Who was drawn to each of these communities, and why? What did each community�and its charismatic leader�offer?
- What kind of warning about the dangers of community does Moment offer in his study of Jonestown as a dystopia?
- What kind of warning about American society�s misunderstanding of commitment to and faith in a �utopian� community and vision should we learn from these dystopias (especially Jonestown and the Branch Davidians, but even the paranoia of Heaven�s Gate)?
