Utopian and Communitarian Movements Reference library
Carl J. Guarneri
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...Utopian enthusiasm promises enlightenment and community, but it also risks exploitation, depersonalization, and megalomania. Indeed, the public's perception of such dangers increased following the 1978 mass suicide of the followers of the Reverend Jim Jones's People's Temple at Jonestown, Guyana, to which Jones had moved from San Francisco, and the tragic 1993 standoff between federal authorities and members of David Koresh's Branch Davidian religious movement at Waco, Texas. More than seventy Davidians died when their compound burned down as the authorities...
