Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control - Couverture souple

Pick, Daniel

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1781257906 ISBN 13 : 9781781257906

Editeur : Wellcome Collection, 2023

Synopsis

'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.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Daniel Pick is a psychoanalyst, historian, university teacher, writer and broadcaster. He is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, a fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and author of several books on modern cultural history, psychoanalysis, and the history of the human sciences.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

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.

'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

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Wellcome Collection
• Date d'édition: 2023
• ISBN 10: 1781257906
• ISBN 13: 9781781257906
• Reliure: Broché
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 368
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible