Summary

The term 'brainwashing' was first recorded in 1950, but it is an expression of a much older concept: the forcible and full-scale alteration of a person's beliefs. Over the past 50 years the term has crept into popular culture, served as a topic for jokes, frightened the public in media headlines, and slandered innumerable people and institutions. It has also been the subject of learned discussion from many angles: history, sociology, psychology, psychotherapy, and marketing. Despite this variety, to date there has been one angle missing: any serious reference to real brains. Descriptions of how opinions can be changed, whether by persuasion, deceit, or force, have been almost entirely psychological.Brainwashing, Kathleen Turner's fascinating and informative voyage through the subject, is the first to combine the latest findings in social psychology and neuroscience in trying to understand the incredibly complicated workings of the human brain. In elegant and accessible prose, and with abundant use of anecdotes and case-studies, she looks at the ethical problems involved in carrying out the required experiments on humans, the limitations of animal models, and the frightening implications of such research. Using a thoughtful and comprehensive approach to the subject, Taylor shows the prevalence of brainwashing in the world today, while effectively defusing the fears associated with it.