Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control

Daniel Pick
Paperback, 368 pages
9781781257906

A brilliant and mind-bending exploration of brainwashing and thought control In 1953, at the end of the Korean War, twenty-two British and American prisoners of war were released - and chose to stay in China. The decision sparked panic 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', a new word for an old idea: that it is possible to control or change someone's mind from the outside without their permission. In an era of Cold War paranoia, the idea of brainwashing flourished - appearing in everything from Bond films and CIA experiments to the assassination of JFK. Today we still talk of being 'brainwashed' by advertising and television. But what is the truth behind brainwashing?

Psychologist and historian Daniel Pick delves into the mysterious world of mind control in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from The Manchurian Candidate to ISIS. Mixing his own case studies with historical and psychological insights, Brainwashed is a stimulating journey into the bizarre and fascinating world of thought control.