Brainwashed Brainwashed

Brainwashed

A New History of Thought Control

    • $9.99
    • $9.99

Publisher Description

'A frankly brilliant book' - GUARDIAN

'An absorbing exploration ... Pick does not stumble' - TORTOISE

'An extraordinarily engrossing and wide-ranging analysis of a word and a concept. I fell under its spell immediately' - SIMON GARFIELD


In 1953, a group of prisoners of war who had fought against the communist invasion of South Korea were released. They chose - apparently freely - to move to Mao's China. Among those refusing repatriation were twenty-one American GIs. Their decision sparked alarm in the West: why didn't they want to come home? What was going on?

Soon, people were saying that the POWs' had been 'brainwashed'. Was this something new or a phenomenon that has been around for centuries? The belief that it is possible to marshal scientific knowledge to govern someone's mind gained enormous attention. In an era of Cold War paranoia and experimentation on 'altered states', the idea of brainwashing flourished, appearing in everything from critiques of CIA research on LSD to warnings of corporate groupthink, from visions of automaton assassins to conspiracy theories about 'global elites'. Today, brainwashing is almost taken for granted - built into our psychological and political language, rooted in the way we think about minds and societies. How did we get to this point - and why?

Psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick delves into the mysterious world of brainwashing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from The Manchurian Candidate to ISIS, TV advertising to online algorithms. Mixing fascinating case studies with historical and psychological insights, Brainwashed is a stimulating journey into the mysteries of thought control.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2022
July 7
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
569
Pages
PUBLISHER
Profile
SELLER
Profile Books Ltd.
SIZE
2.1
MB
The Politics of History The Politics of History
2012
Humankind Humankind
2020
Voltaire's Bastards Voltaire's Bastards
2012
CULTURE AS HISTORY CULTURE AS HISTORY
1985
Clio's Bastards Clio's Bastards
2016
Out of Our Minds Out of Our Minds
2019
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis
2015
Trilby Trilby
2006
The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind
2012
Dreams and History Dreams and History
2004
Global Markets For Processed Foods Global Markets For Processed Foods
2019
Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism
2016