| Details | | Publication Date: | 1998-05-01 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Length: | 320 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 16.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
This is the story the daily press didn't give us, the definitive book about what happened at Mt. Carmel, near Waco, Texas, examined from both sides - the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the FBI on one hand, and David Koresh and his followers on the other. Dick J. Reavis points out that the government had little reason to investigate Koresh and even less to raid the compound at Mt. Carmel. The government lied to the public about most of what happened - about who fired the first shots, about drug allegations, about child abuse. The FBI was duplicitous and negligent in gassing Mt. Carmel - and that alone could have started the fire that killed seventy-six people. Drawing on interviews with survivors of Koresh's movement (which dates back to 1935, long before Koresh was born), on published accounts, on trial transcripts, on esoteric religious tracts and audiotapes that tell us who Koresh was and why people followed him, and most of all on secret documents that the government has not released to the public yet, Reavis has uncovered the real story from beginning to end, including the trial that followed.
Industry Reviews
"Thousands of details...portray life inside the compound and offer a Davidian's perspective of the attacks by federal agents. Others, from autopsy reports and court records, suggest strongly the government's culpability."
Washington Post Book World - Bill Broadway (07/30/1995)
"By piecing together information from interviews with survivors and former followers, Dick J. Reavis conveys some of Koresh's confusion and arbitrariness....Reavis does not sanctify Koresh, nor does he absolve him of blame."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Margaret Singer (07/30/1995)
"Mr. Reavis is scathing on the behavior of both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Federal Bureau of Investigation....As for the Branch Davidians and their presumptive messiah, David Koresh, Mr. Reavis holds that while they were sinned against, they were not without sin."
New York Times Book Review - Mark Silk (09/03/1995)
"...Dick J. Reavis artfully reconstructs the founding of the Waco group as an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church....With his properly tuned ear, Reavis discovered that the Davidians were more devout and less menacing than their popular image. And he describes them as people who, though perhaps troubled, had each made a deliberate choice to live as they did."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Michael D'Antonio (08/16/1995)
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