Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control

by Daniel Pick

'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 GARFIELDIn 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 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.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychoanalysis

341 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2020

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather than a chronological history of actual brainwashing, this book turned out to be an essay on the history of American and British thinking and worrying about brainwashing, from the Korean War to the present day. After a nearly endless introductory chapter, the first section deals with the paranoia about “brainwashing” arising out of the actions of Allied POWs in the Korean War (some of them chose to move to China, initially). The next section, entitled “The Captive Mind”, discusses propaganda aimed at captive populations (i.e., Germans in Nazi Germany, Russians in Russia). After that, there is a chapter on the history and development of the concept of “group think.” Chapter five focuses on the post-war history of advertising in the US and UK, and the last chapter talks about paranoia in US/UK politics, and QAnon in particular.

Sadly, propaganda by enemy states, currently the most dangerous type of brainwashing for democracy, is not addressed with any depth here (a paragraph mention in the advertising section only), and this was disappointing, not least because the cover photo, with its malevolent recording device, was clearly pitched to the theme of enemy states and “active measures” (see below for definition). More importantly, though, this topic should be addressed, because the world is currently in the midst of a brainwashing campaign of the most insidious and malevolent nature, with the goal of the destruction of the post-war Western world order, including as many democracies in Europe as it can trash. From Polish farmers to Q-Anon worldwide, the probable reach is shocking/impressive.

If you doubt this, then read the following books. (This is just a sample of the ones I have read. There are others in this vein.) I cannot recommend them enough:

Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West(the continuation of the Cold War operations to discredit and topple Western democracies by former KGB staff, Russian mobsters, Russian elite)
Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (good samples of Cold War era Russian misinformation tactics)
Stalin's War: A New History of World War II (Russian duplicity and the infiltration of US government by Russians)
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia(what Russia is like today)

At the outset of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, I saw a quote that is worth repeating: “Russia’s most dangerous weapon isn’t a missile or a bomb; it’s what they can get you to believe.”

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a book on such an interesting subject, this was boring as shit!

Daniel Pick seems to direct most of his focus towards China and Korea, endlessly harping on about communist regimes whilst saying very little about the US government, the CIA and its MK Ultra programme of manipulation of US soldiers.

The sections on advertising and subliminal suggestion are predictable and tell us nothing new at all.

The title of the book is "A New History of Thought Control" however there is nothing new or fresh to be said here. All the ideas seem to be rehashed and the referencing to other books in the notes is considerable to say the least.

A very disappointing offering which I wouldn't recommend whatsoever. If anyone has a better recommendation for books on this subject, I'm all ears.

[Roos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing and well researched book about the social, cultural and political forces around us that can hijack and redirect our minds.

“..often we have room to act and make decisions, and certainly we bargain with ourselves and others. We cannot have complete mastery of our own minds or of our environments, but we can notice ways we are deceiving ourselves and fitting in.”

[Martin Wilkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensively researched and analytically presented examination of where we are as individuals in the context of the multiple emergencies we face compounded by erosion of democracy by multiple forces. How do we retain agency as individuals to accommodate the compromises we n Ed to make with ourselves to get through. Thoroughly recommend- although it needed a reread for me to even begin to fathom. A masterpiece.

[Hussian · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب رائع يستعرض الكاتب تاريخ موجز لمصطلح (غسيل الدماغ) وكيفية حدوث هذه العملية وتطورها مع مرور الزمن.. يحتوي الكتاب على ٦ فصول وهي :
1-غسيل الدماغ
2-نقطة الانكسار
3-العقل الاسير
4-التفكير الجماعي
5-المقنعون الخفيون
6-نمط البارانويا
مستشهدا في كل فصل بكتب وأدبيات تشرح بصورة مفصلة الأفكار والأمثلة... بالنسبة لي كقارئ إن المواضيع التي طرحت هذا الكتاب ليست جديدة علي وإنما الاستفادة هي سترى هذه المواضيع بصورة مفصلة و طريقة أخرى..

[naomi :•) · Rating 2 out of 5]

if you’ve ever watched an adam curtis documentary you’ve basically read this book in a better/more concise manner and aphex twin was there

[Poppy Parkes-Old · Rating 3 out of 5]

* 3.5

Brainwashed is a deeply researched and thought-provoking exploration of brainwashing across history. Drawing from a vast range of sources, Pick’s writing is engaging but occasionally slow, feeling like a dense university essay at times. Still, it’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the psychology of influence.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pick got on my radar after reading some stuff about Edward Hunter

and his connections to the intelligence community, and how he didn't create the phrase brainwashing as commonly thought but it was the psychological warfare expert and chinese historian who worked at the highest levels, Linebarger, who is much more famous as the science-fiction writer Cordwainer Smith....

..........

Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966), better known by his pen-name Cordwainer Smith, was an American author known for his science fiction works.

Linebarger was a US Army officer, a noted East Asia scholar, and an expert in psychological warfare.

Although his career as a writer was shortened by his death at the age of 53, he is considered one of science fiction's more talented and influential authors.

Early life and education

Linebarger's father, Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger, was a lawyer, working as a judge in the Philippines. There he met Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-sen to whom he became an advisor. Linebarger's father sent his wife to give birth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin so that their child would be eligible to become president of the United States. Sun Yat-sen, who was considered the father of Chinese nationalism, became Linebarger's godfather.

His young life was unsettled as his father moved the family to a succession of places in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He was sometimes sent to boarding schools for safety. In all, Linebarger attended more than 30 schools. In 1919, while at a boarding school in Hawaii, he was blinded in his right eye and it was replaced by a glass eye. The vision in his remaining eye was impaired by infection.

Linebarger was familiar with English, German, and Chinese by adulthood. At the age of 23, he received a PhD in political science from Johns Hopkins University.

Career[edit]

From 1937 to 1946, Linebarger held a faculty appointment at Duke University, where he began producing highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.

While retaining his professorship at Duke after the beginning of World War II, Linebarger began serving as a second lieutenant of the United States Army, where he was involved in the creation of the Office of War Information and the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board.

He also helped organize the army's first psychological warfare section.

In 1943, he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations.

When he later pursued his interest in China, Linebarger became a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.

In 1947, Linebarger moved to the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where he served as Professor of Asiatic Studies.

He used his experiences in the war to write the book Psychological Warfare (1948), regarded by many in the field as a classic text.

He eventually rose to the rank of colonel in the reserves. He was recalled to advise the British forces in the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. Eighth Army in the Korean War.

While he was known to call himself a "visitor to small wars", he refrained from becoming involved in the Vietnam War, but is known to have done work for the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1969 CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. wrote that Linebarger was "perhaps the leading practitioner of 'black' and 'gray' propaganda in the Western world".

According to Joseph Burkholder Smith, a former CIA operative, he conducted classes in psychological warfare for CIA agents at his home in Washington under cover of his position at the School of Advanced International Studies.

He traveled extensively and became a member of the Foreign Policy Association, and was called upon to advise President John F. Kennedy.

Science fiction style

According to Frederik Pohl:
"In his stories, which were a wonderful and inimitable blend of a strange, raucous poetry and a detailed technological scene, we begin to read of human beings in worlds so far from our own in space in time that they were no longer quite Earth (even when they were the third planet out from Sol), and the people were no longer quite human, but something perhaps better, certainly different."

...........

like this

Edward Hunter: CIA operative?

Historians generally agree that the coining of ‘brainwash’, in English, can be credited to Edward Hunter (1902-1978), an American journalist and propaganda expert.

While working as a foreign correspondent in Asia during the 1950s, Hunter wrote news articles and books about the People’s Republic of China’s programme to re-educate the masses in communist ideology.

His earliest reports on brainwashing (1950a, 1950b) were teasers for Hunter’s book, Brain-Washing in Red China: The Calculated Destruction of Men’s Minds (1951), which is considered the first full monograph to describe the Chinese process of ‘brainwashing’.

In this early account, ‘brainwashing’ meant intensive indoctrination in Maoism and the harsh repression of alternative political ideologies.

Yet this history of how ‘brainwashing’ entered the English language is not as straightforward as it may seem, because Hunter was no ordinary journalist.

He was a keen student of propaganda who, in addition to reporting from the Far East for various news services, amassed a large collection of Chinese political pamphlets and ephemera.

For two years during World War II he worked for the Morale Operations Section of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After the war, he not only wrote popular texts about communist brainwashing in China, Korea and the Soviet Union but also gave lectures on propaganda and psychological warfare.

He served as a witness on communist brainwashing for the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

In the 1960s, he edited and published a newsletter, TACTICS, which focused on psychological warfare and propaganda as it related to American national security.

One of the enduring mysteries surrounding Hunter is whether his contribution of ‘brainwashing’ to the English language was mere reportage, or was orchestrated by the CIA.

Some scholars have considered Hunter’s employment in the OSS in the 1940s as indication that he had links to the CIA in the 1950s, and thus may have been helped by the CIA in his efforts to promote ‘brainwashing’ as an eminent threat (Marks 1979, Melley 2011, Young 2014; cf. Dunne 2013, pp. 23-24).

This hypothesis seems supported by the fact that the word ‘brainwashing’ has been found in government documents that may have been written prior to Hunter’s first publications on the subject (Melley 2011, p. 28).

Indeed, Timothy Melley notes that a document found in the CIA’s MKUltra papers, ‘Narrative Description of the Overt and Covert Activities of [Redacted]’, references the term ‘brainwashing’.

Melley gives the date of this document as 1 January 1950, several months ahead of Hunter’s first publication to use the phrase.

However, the actual date of this document is unknown–the index to the MKUltra papers assigns 01/01/1950 merely as a placeholder.

Though it is likely that the document was created sometime in 1950, and could certainly pre-date Hunter’s writings on the subject, it seems implausible to therefore conclude that this documents proves a connection between the CIA and Hunter, or that the CIA invented the term ‘brainwashing’.

Meanwhile, our project’s PhD candidate Charlie Williams has come across another relevant document, one that uses the term ‘brainwashing’ and is dated 14 September 1950 (ten days ahead of Hunter’s article in the Miami News).

The document is a report by the propaganda scholar-cum-novelist Paul Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith) on his observations on the Korean peninsula in the early stages of the Korean War.

Linebarger describes seeing ‘an endless process which is called by the nick-name of “brain washing”’ in which teams of communist interrogators attempted to convert Chinese and Koreans to submit to communist authority.

[Mark Henkel · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Masculine Bovine Fecal Matter" sounds fascinating until you realize it is just "Bullsh-t!" That is the best description of the difference from the book's title versus its actual content. With a stark cover picture of a surveillance reel-to-reel tape recording machine, this book's title, Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control , suggested that it would provide a fascinating look at what the title implies. But the contents are actually nothing of the sort - a totally broken "promise." Most readers are familiar with the maxim, "Don't judge a book by its cover or title." If ever there was a book that proves to be the exemplary maximum maxim of that truism, it is this ultra-disappointing book by Elite-funded British Professor of the University of London, Daniel Pick. The title is a lie so as to deceive book readers into buying this useless book; it is not about the title: Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control . That title is a lie.

I am sure some reading this Book Review now are thinking, "Gosh, Mark, tell us how you really feel!"

I will.

I read this whole book so that you don't have to!

One will not learn any history of thought-control or how people get brainwashed, as the title misleads any eager and well-intended reader to anticipate. Rather, what is written reveals how deeply the author is actually BRAINWASHED in socialist progressive propaganda.

This is a book that actually would have readers think that millions of non-centralized independent businesses advertising their products are "brainwashing" people in the West to accept consumerism and to embrace capitalism, but never seriously focuses on the worst culprit of all brainwashing, centralized governments "brainwashing" people to embrace government authority over -and to control- their very lives. The one exception is the classic "oppositional" position of all progressive propaganda: the would-be bogeyman of the truly tyrannical evil of fascism/nazism. And after barely (and almost apologetically) touching upon the totalitarianism of communism in China (by way of the Korean War), there is barely any additional whisper about the brainwashing and thought-control of communist regimes. From the limited discussion, you would think that USSR communism was just a "bad thing," but nothing (in this book's bias) compared to the fascism and nazism of Mussolini and Hitler. Additional otherwise-expected examples such as Cuba, subsequent North Korea (without China), and numerous other murderous communist regimes throughout the last century that all specifically used brainwashing and thought-control instead went ignored by this book as if that actual HISTORY never happened. So much for being a supposed "New History of Thought Control!"

Making it worse, in the last "Part," anyone who questions or pushes back against the progressive elite-controlled governments is maligned as a paranoid BRAINWASHED "conspiracy theorist." For two examples, anyone pushing back against the progressive-invented "climate crisis" (which I see as a cult of apocalyptic worshipers) or the progressive "health-control" of the masses during the pandemic (to which I refer as "the tyranny of Covid1984")... to even question those progressive positions means, according to this D.Pick, that you are BRAINWASHED as a paranoid "conspiracy theorist." Hence, D.Pick is employing the very same BRAINWASHING false-labeling tactic that he pretends to decry and warn. But because he is so visibly BRAINWASHED in socialist progressive propaganda, the author acts with the hubris as though he is writing from the position of normalcy and truth. BRAINWASHED and BRAINWASHING indeed.

The structure of the book is organized, not into chapters, but into exceedingly long "Parts," as follows:

A Note to the Reader
Preface
Part 1 Brainwashing
Part 2 Breaking Point
Part 3 The Captive Mind
Part 4 Groupthink
Part 5 The Hidden Persuaders
Part 6 The Paranoid Style
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index

If author D.Pick employed an actual editor for this book, that person should be fired! (He claims he did in the Acknowledgements, but I am doubtful that there was much editing beyond perhaps grammar and typo-fixes.) The excruciatingly long "Parts" should have been subdivided into perhaps three or four chapters each. Of course, however, doing that would reveal that so much of this book was really just a meandering info-dump of progressive propaganda. Any intelligent editor subdividing the way-too-long "Parts" into chapters would then have rightly removed a lot of wasted time of "blah blah blah" content. I must herewith add a comment of credibility that I have previously been able to outright enjoy even the 100-word sentences of historic writers, such as those of Adam Smith in " The Theory of Moral Sentiments " (1759) and " The Wealth of Nations " (1776), of course. But this author's attempts at longer sentences are only mind-numbingly tedious.

Within this book, the author himself was seeking to BRAINWASH the readers by an extreme overuse of the reference, "liberal democracy" - especially as he refers examples mostly to the United States and briefly about this own country of England. Repeatedly re-stating a false term over and over is another well-established and well-known tactic of centralized governments to BRAINWASH the masses with their propaganda. D.Pick uses that BRAINWASHING tactic by incessantly re-stating the false term, "liberal democracy."

On page after page of this book, I had to write my own commentary in the margins to correct the book with the fact that "We Are NOT a Democracy" (which is a hashtag I have established years ago on numerous social media). The USA is a Constitutional Representative Republic. #WeAreNOTaDemocracy indeed.

As for England, D.Pick even pretended the following deception on Page 282.

QUOTE:

"Even as I write,
the government in my own country,
still a liberal democracy of sorts,
albeit of a very peculiar kind
(with so many votes for our 'first past the post' system of counting for nothing),
adopts a clownish prime minister
who lies shamelessly,
adopts a clownish shtick
and careers wildly
from the most illiberal measures
to calls and half-steps towards an agenda for greater fairness and stepped-up climate action."

UNQUOTE.

England is definitely not "a democracy" - not of any sort.
Rather, England is a monarchy, with a king,
the very thing away from which
Americans rose up in revolution
to eventually create our Constitutional Representative Republic
that we are supposed to still be to this day.

But as one can see from all the known progressive positions even in that one quote above, D.Pick has only been BRAINWASHED in the thought-control of progressive propaganda, which routinely tries to posit the falsehood of countries such as England and the USA as supposed "liberal democracies" -a BRAINWASHING tactic indeed.

Even in the final three paragraphs of the book, D.Pick cites the absurd and ultra-progressive "activist," Greta Thunberg, as if that utterly BRAINWASHED child has any credibility. He then instantly follows that absurd citation with the following with which to conclude the book on Page 283.

QUOTE:

"So, if you are still wondering,
'am I brainwashed?',
a good place to start
is in consideration of
the interlocking
environmental, political, and economic emergencies."

UNQUOTE.

Thereby, D.Pick admits his own BRAINWASHING of progressive "priorities." (And yes, I hereabove corrected his perpetual absence of the Oxford Comma!)

The book cites progressive sources. At least three of the Parts are simply going on and on about one specific past author on the subtopic. It only cites "conservative" sources in mockery, never as even attempted balance. This author clearly "believes" everything advanced by the elites up to the year 2022 regarding the Covid1984, regurgitates the progressive false narrative of the staged (and later disproved) would-be "January 6 insurrection" in 2021, and demonstrates to clearly possess what has been understood as "Trump Derangement Syndrome," known as TDS (i.e., to hate and oppose literally everything that President Trump does, no matter how good it could be, only because President Trump was the one doing it). No doubt, D.Pick clearly never saw the coming history-course-correction of the 2024 election revolution that brought Trump back into office and exposed the depths of BRAINWASHING by which the socialist progressive Elites had been pushing the cover up of the former President Joe "Auto-Pen" Biden's failing mental acuity.

This book's content utterly breaks the promise that its title deceives.

I read this 341-page book from September 19 through October 24, 2025, from a Friday to a Friday 5 weeks later: a total of 36 days to read.

Just under 12 hours, it took me 1,193 minutes (11 hours 53 minutes) to completely read the entirety of read-time - including ending Notes, underlining, and making copious margin notes.

This mis-titled book, Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control , was given to me from my beloved bride as a Christmas 2023 gift. It is now the 21st such gift-book that I have read since she breathed her last breath peacefully in my arms over 16 months ago (as I write this on October 24, 2025).

I kept reading through to the end of this book only so that I could give this valid book review with full credibility as one who read it all. I did this in order to so credibly herewith forewarn others of the lie this book's title presents.

For people with a serious interest (as I do) in the otherwise genuinely fascinating topic of brainwashing and thought control, this book should be IGNORED. Toward such end, it is useless. The only readers who will enjoy this book will be people who have also been BRAINWASHED in the socialist progressive propaganda and seek more foolish confirmation bias.

Totally, this book is Masculine Bovine Fecal Matter, MBFM....

It really is just Bullsh-t!

Now you doubtlessly know how I really feel.

For my first-time-ever 1-star rating of a book, I have to say...

Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control
by Daniel Pick
is a 1-Star book.

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly clever and subtle book. I was expecting more on the age of social media, but Pick chose (wisely) to explore the history and various permutations of Thought Control in psychology, politics and beyond, which was a suitably profound and thorough journey.
Also, I now believe everything he wrote.

(Little joke for you, there)

[Michael O'sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't learn anything new from this particular book but I'm sure it presents some interesting ideas to someone. Felt a bit fixed on studying exclusively work started 70 years ago, with some paragraphs phrased almost deliberately for the reader to draw their own parallels to the present. It's not bad, just didn't do much for me.

[eh · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmmmmm okay yes but also not really if that makes sense

[Philip William · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history which starts in 1950 when people in the West thought that the Communists in the Korean War were "Brainwashing" prisoners of war. The author argues that this particular fear was vastly exaggerated.

He then moves onto deal with a number of works that were published not long after this:
'The Captive Mind' by Czeslaw Milosz in 1953
'Groupthink' a term popularised in 1952
"The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard first published in 1957

He writes around these books/thoughts and explains how they influenced thinking in the decades that followed and that ultimately all of the fears at the time appear to have been exaggerated.

The author has obviously read widely but over a very narrow left wing spectrum of books and articles. He normal quotes articles and books that talk about right wing thinkers rather than the original thinker and the only right wing book that I was convinced he had read was 'Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy' by Joseph Schumpeter and published in 1942.

He finishes up with some thinking about the present day and becomes increasingly hysterical about the errors of conspiracy theories etc and exhibits all the worst approaches of those that he had talked about from the 1950s (McCarthy etc)

While there are 40 pages of references I was often left scratching my head as there was no reference to something I wanted to know more about.

If you want an introduction to intellectuals thinking about thought control in the 1950s and 1960s this might be a good place to start but it fails to think much about this at an earlier date (e.g. under Goebbels) or present date approaches to thought control by the state (e.g. the Social Credit System in present day China)

Rather than read the book by Pick you would do better to read the books that I listed above (I have never read "The Captive Mind" but I have studied Groupthink and read "The Hidden Persuaders")

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not going to lie I am going to pretend like I did actually finish the last 20 pages of this book and like I didn't have to throw it away bc it got mouldy. Also I am writing this review like 3 months after so I am going off a NOTES DOC I wrote in AUGUST whoops

I found the writing style kind of dry and repetitive at times but it's ok it's non-fiction I guess. Sometimes it felt like there would be concepts or events not properly explained, because we'd be assumed to know about them, but that is also probably my fault for not knowing enough things or not reading enough. I think he did do well at explaining the things he was actually talking about in depth. All of my issues w the book are probably just me problems

Other than that it was actually quite good and interesting I felt like my brain expanded and I had lots to think about. I really liked how multidisciplinary the book was: the author managed to talk about so many subjects and disciplines without it ever coming across as rambling or irrelevant. I think he structured everything quite well. Also, I liked that I could see how the topics discussed related to what I see in real life. It also made me self-reflect on the extent to which we are all brainwashed in society, and what things and what kind of lifestyle I value.

Also I really appreciated how meticulous and detailed the author was while writing, covering different perspectives of and approaches to a topic. I liked how intellectually stimulating it was like it actually got me to ANNOTATE and write notes on it but unfortunately (apart from my 1 notes doc) that is all gone now because of the mould. 3

[Rene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arendt wrote: ‘The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false.

The ‘false self’, wrote the paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, a decade after The Captive Mind was published, ‘is built up on a basis of compliance’. This false self, he observed, can have a defensive function: the protection of the true self.

[Lucy Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at various forms of brainwashing and mind control through (recent) history, from “traditional” brainwashing through torture and cult leaders to advertising, conspiracy theories, and political propaganda. I thought Pick was very measured and balanced politically and covered a wide range of examples, making this a decent overview of the whole subject. Due to his background as a psychoanalyst, there was a bit of content about various Freudian theories that flew right over my head, but other than that, I found this a fascinating book.

[Barry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't for me, so YMV, of course. I started the first chapter, and realised it felt familiar: like a fancy version of "Webster's defines brainwashing as..." I read the first and last couple of pages of each chapter, and decided, despite the importance and innate interest of the topic, this book wasn't going to work for me.

[Mark Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to find this engaging (along the the lines of 'the men who stare at goats', but more of a worthy but somewhat dull survey of the academic literature to date,and widens out to advertising, management theory etc.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very good literature review on the topic tbh

[Bosmer Novak · Rating 1 out of 5]

God this was dull. He very vaguely introduces one interesting idea, somehow explains it for ten pages without including any further details then does it over and over again for the whole book