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Title details for Brainwash by Dominic Streatfeild - Available

Brainwash

The Secret History of Mind Control

by Dominic Streatfeild
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Vivid and disturbing, Brainwash is essential insight into the modern practice of interrogation and torture from the acclaimed author of Cocaine.
With access to formerly classified documentation and interviews from the CIA, US Army, MI5, MI6, and British Intelligence Corps, Dominic Streatfeild traces the evolution of mind control from its origins in the Cold War to the height of today's war on terror.
Behind the front lines of every war in the world, prisoners are forced to sit for interrogation: manipulated, coerced, and sometimes tortured—often without ever being touched. Brainwash is a history of the methods intended to destroy and reconstruct the minds of captives, to extract information, convert dissidents, and lead peaceful men to kill and be killed.
"A gripping survey of the post-war history of interrogation techniques." —Telegraph on Sunday (UK)
"Breathless . . . reads like a spy thriller." —The Guardian (UK)
"Marvelously engrossing. This book is a series of wonderfully detailed and cleverly told stories, each of which debunks the brainwashing myth. Streatfeild's narrative control cannot be faulted. His research is formidable." —The Sunday Times (UK)
"An expansive and multifaceted exploration of brainwashing in its multitude of forms." —Booklist

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 1, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781466834507

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781466834507
      • File size: 682 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      March 15, 2007
      Streatfeild, a documentary film producer and author of a social history of cocaine use (" Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography," 2001), offers an expansive and multifaceted exploration of brainwashing in its multitude of forms. With chapters on hypnosis, sensory deprivation, subliminal messages, religious indoctrination, and a variety of truth serums, this account chronicles the many ways psychology and pharmacology have been enlisted in people's apparently perennial effort to control the minds of other people. Steeped in cold war intrigue, Streatfeild's narrative features the CIA and other intelligence agencies heavily; tales oscillate between the absurdly hilarious (CIA director Allen Dulles dispatching two agents to Switzerland in 1953 to buy up the world's entire supply of LSD for "research") and the profoundly disturbing (CIA agents secretly dosing civilians and analyzing the results). Although the author includes some lengthy jaunts into popular culture to examine films and song lyrics, his core concern is the deadly serious business of mental torture as practiced by today's intelligence services. Sprawling, accessible, and at times quite casual, this book will attract a diverse readership.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2007
      Streatfeild ("Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography"), a documentary film producer and writer hailing from London, examines the many different brainwashing techniques utilized by governments, religions, and other groups throughout history. Among the topics he discusses are truth drugs (via chemical use), "eating the flesh of God" (psychedelic mushrooms), "hooding," advertising, music, sensory deprivation, hypnosis, and the Unification Church. Streatfeild puts particular emphasis on the role of the CIA, especially its attempt to develop various types of truth serums. People expecting or hoping to learn how to brainwash someone will be disappointed in this book. But those interested in the more arcane historical aspects of brainwashing techniques will be pleased with the abundance of historical examples it provides. Recommended for specialized history collections.Tim Delaney, SUNY at Oswego

      Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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