Powerful, well written, classic. I have been researching the rise and fall of the Peoples' Temple since 1980, and Naipaul has written a documentation that is not only deep and probing but also prophetic.

The powerful were not manipulated -- they were complicit. This much I know, and they remain complicit. I know things today about the Temple that Naipaul did not. Still, Naipaul's rendering is as balanced as it is unbiased -- something you don't find very easily anymore.

While the racial aspect of what happened in Guyana is such an obvious factor, what is not clear is why. Naipaul has a theory as eloquent as it is powerful:

"The CIA killed them. America killed them. They had gone to the Guyanese jungle because they wanted to live a life free of racism, sexism and poverty. ... One can think of them (Blacks) as the human equivalent of the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants: sterile and potentially lethal. What, the ecologists ask, is one to do with this waste? Bury it miles underground? Shoot it into outer space? Discover some way of breaking it down and rendering it harmless? The junk people. The human waste left behind by American history, are no less negative, no less dangerous a quantity. One sees them on the streets of midtown Manhattan, carrying glittering noisemaking machines, dressed to kill, the ugliness and the hatred of the discarded slave glowing in their eyes. You see them in Harlem, standing drunk or drugged on street corners. What is to be done with them?"

What a concept. Not because of what or who they are ... but because of what we have made of them. The concept boggles the mind with it's clarity and coherence!

What is also true is that because the world believed they were all suicides (they were most assuredly not) no church would accept their bodies for burial. How can a travesty become any more horrendous, as the bodies bloated and leaked their toxic fluids in the tropical heat? Again, not something Naipaul was privy too, but I have learned since.

Further on, at the end, the book becomes even more prophetic in terms of where the concept of "mind control" took of from Jim Jones, validating theories that are unfolding as we speak. First copyrighted in 1980, it is amazing how clear his vision truly was. I love this book, and highly recommend it for insights into what is happening in this world at this time.

I love Naipauls work--always thought provoking and eloquent. It reminds me of the more recent memoir by the author and survivor of Jim Jones encampment in Guyana South America, Deborah Layton. Her book, Seductive Poison explains how the political elite were seduced into providing favors to the Peoples Temple--both in Guyana and the United States. Read together, Journey to Nowhere and Seducitve Poison are powerful bedfellows.

While Shiva Naipaul's fiction is powerful - I am thinking principally of his first work Fireflies - one can not deny that his legacy lies in the realm of non-fiction. He was, after all, a highly regarded travel writer.

I would contend that Shiva Naipaul was much more than a very good travel writer. While Journey to Nowhere uses settings, scenery and environment well to disturb the complacent Westerner, who has not had to witness the breakdown of the social order as the Guianese have, it also triumphs in simply telling a good story, something Shiva's older brother has a hard time doing in his Among the Believers.

Nowadays, the amount of fiction published is shrinking, while non-fiction is flourishing. This emphasis on non-fiction, fueled by a desire to cater to specific segments of society in order to increase profitability, has resulted in the production of some of the most boring books anyone will ever see. Proof of this is Edmund Morris' Dutch: non-fiction is so boring one has to make up characters to liven it up. Whatever happened to all the wonderful stories that life presents to us everyday? Is life so totally devoid of anything interesting that we must turn to our imaginations?

Shiva Naipaul's Journey to Nowhere stands far above the mediocre titles in non-fiction today, simply because Naipaul tells a good, albeit complex story. Naipaul traces the breakdown of the social order in Guiana to attitudes characteristic of the American Left. Eerie parallels can be found between Guianese strongman Forbes Burnham, Jim Jones, Huey Newton, and even - gasp - R. Buckminister Fuller. Nationalistic ideals people like Burnham, Jones, and Newton foster go hand in hand with leftist nonsense that R. Buckminister Fuller fostered. The dots are difficult to connect, but Shiva Naipaul connected them in this masterpiece which is certainly worth reading.

NO PERSON HAD MORE POWER OVER HIS PEOPLE NEXT TO HITLER THAN JIM JONES!!!THE AMERICAN HITLER!!THE AUTHORS TRACE THE CHILD HOOD OF THIS BRILLIANT BUT MAD MAN AND COVER THE RISING OF THE PEOPLE TEMPLE AND THE TRAGIC ENDING!!! A MUST READ!!!

...and one that is written from the inside out I would also suggest SEDUCTIVE POISON by Deborah Layton. It has received incredible reviews both on-line and in print. It is a insider's riveting accountof how and why people were caught up in this humanitarian organization. JimJones was a well respected politician and Reverend in teh early 70's and many young Vietnam protesting rebels joined him.What had seemed like a Humanitarian organization soon turned darker and 900 of his more than 3,000 members found themselves isolated in a jungle and suddenly unable to leave. VERY POWERFUL!

This book was one of a kind regarding the many books I have read covering the Jonestown massacres. It kept me on the edge of my seat and I was unable to put it down. I felt as if I were there the authors did such a vivid job covering those horrible days leading to the final holocaust over in Guyana. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would like a fact based view of those final days over there.

I've read this book at least 5 times - more for some chapters - and I've thoroughly enjoyed it evey time. Rob has a way of capturing stories that take you there. As a family, he, our baby daughter, and I served in Guyana six months Feb 2001-Aug 2001. It was a tremendous experience and the aviation service saved many lives. I hope that he will keep writing and that you'll look for those stories about our next project in Guatemala!

No, really, it is. You should read it.

Fantastic (and very accurate) accounts of his encounters with the local folk and descriptions of the places he passed through on his journey. Made for a racey, entertaining and somewhat exotic read. Alot of first hand information for anyone thinking of travelling through Guyana indeed!

I want Marc Herman to be my travel guide, whenever I sit back in my armchair -- or whenever I enter a new land. His easygoing style is seductive, but the energy of his insight into the culture is what makes him so appealing.

How can a country so full of gold have so many problems? Journey with Marc and find out; and have a blast along the way.

I couldn't stop reading this book.Mrs.Mills gave a detailed account of her six years in the People's Temple.It was sad to hear her personal stories of some of the children that died at Jonestown.If you ever find this book, buy it!
I can't understand why its out of print. Sadly in early 1980, several months after the book was released,Mrs.Mills and her husband Al were found shot to death in their home.Their daughter Daphne was also shot.Daphne lived a few days in the hospital and then died.All 3 had been members of the Temple .Their murders are still unsolved.
I wish the book would be reprinted so it would be easier for people to find and buy.

Jeannie Mills was a big-hearted woman who would take people into her home at the drop of a hat. The People's Temple seemed to provide an avenue through which she could share her love of humanity. Needless to say, it was big mistake. Jones used her sterling qualities as he used the thousand or so others who joined his Temple. Mills tells a bizarre tale of cruelty, rip offs and insanity. Accepting the belief that self-sacrifice was more important than self-esteem, she and others gave up more and more to Jones' "cause" which turned out to be world domination for Jones (as he revealed to them). The book makes an interesting companion piece to Deborah Layton's book, "Seductive Poison." Too bad it's out of print.

This book makes very interesting reading for expert and layperson alike. It is a study that portrays Guyana as a set of physical and political contrasts and contradictions - contrasts between the beauty of the land and of its rewards, between coast and hinterland and, contradictions between pronouncement and intent, between opportunities and their exploitation. Among the many interesting pictures found in the book is that of the beautiful, but little-known, Chinakuruk Falls on the Essequibo. The falls have the appearance of a chimera or mirage - a theme of the book!

Carl Greenidge worked as a research and teaching economist in the UK, Africa and Guyana prior to taking up the post for which he is better remembered in the Caribbean - Minister of Finance and Planning of Guyana in the 1980s. The style of the book reflects that varied background, especially in teaching, and makes for easy reading. He writes about land settlement schemes but does so through the lens of the wider political, economic and social developments over the last 120 years.

Land settlement schemes were initially established for Chinese emigrants but they primarily benefited East Indians. Their objectives have changed over time, which means that in time they affected other ethnic groups also. They touched, and were a contrast to, early the village settlements. Subsequently, they too spawned villages. Initially, they served the sugar plantocracy, then the rice barons and the managers of 'Cooperative Socialism' in different ways with many, often hidden, consequences for the politics and social life of Guyana. The stated objective of these schemes has been to establish a peasantry but life beyond settlement has always been precarious and the economic stability of small farming has never been assured. The story of this sector and of the attempts at its modernisation is told against a historical background but ironically the lessons remain pertinent today.

So, although the book is about agricultural policy, its triggers and its consequences, it is of much wider interest. It is about Guyana, its policies and economics, its struggles and ethnic tensions as well as its prospects. The book is meticulously footnoted, draws on a wide range of primary, as well as secondary sources and, contains an extremely extensive bibliography on Guyana. The latter alone would be welcome to many students due to the paucity of current, well-researched material on Guyana.

Mr Greenidge draws on the works of a number of well-known Guyanese novelists, current and past - Melville, Shinebourne and Mettleholzer, for example - to illustrate his theme of contradictions and mirages and of the link between the physical and social. An extensive foreword has been provided by Dr Professor Cedric Grant, head of the School of Caribbean and Political Studies at Clarke University. Grant positions the book in the setting or context of the current political debate on Guyana and highlights the significant academic importance of this contribution to the debate on public policy as well as ethnicity in the Caribbean.

This is highly recommended reading and a worthwhile purchase for both the expert and the intelligent observer of Guyana and Caribbean affairs!!

14/6/2001.

It was awesome! I loved it! These funny illistrations were classic

A WONDERFUL BOOK, recounts of childhood days and growing up middle-class in a tropical paradise. It is all about growing up in pre-independence Georgetown - Guyana, with it's special querky social mores, of blissfully flying kites at Easter, celebrating and enjoying Christmas, enjoying summer holidays in the country, playing cricket, the rainy season, attending Queen's College, sneaking out to that first fete, and of so many things that are important (and unimportant) to a any Guyanese boy. At that age, that time, that place - Life was sweet!!

This book is the perfect gift for friendship, parenting, for any occasion. Oh, go ahead and treat yourself to a copy.

I JUST FINISHED READING THIS BOOK, FOR BY SCHOOL AND TO ME AS A NATURE LOVE THIS WAS THE BEST BOOK I JHAVE READ FOR A WHILE, IT;S DEAL WITH BIODEVESRITY, AND IT,S PEOPLE AS I PUT ON TOP A 5 STAR IT TO ME IT NEEDED IT. GO READ IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY IT IT WILL BE AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.

THANK YOU

This is an excellent book in terms of historical and geographic factors in guyana.The ethnic and cultural differences of the people in Guyana was written clearly.