Daren
Well, this is certainly an odd book. I am not sure what I expected, but it was not this.
Basically in the late 1970s a secret unit was formed within the US Army to research psychological advantages to be used in war. From the outright wacky (attempting to walk through walls) to the at best marginal - remote viewing, psychic spies, lsd experimentation, subliminal messaging, and of course the ability to kill goats just by staring at them!
Ronson is like a dog with bone, researching over a long period of time, regularly checking in with each of his contacts, pestering them with questions and asking them to recount events and eventually learning the names of other operatives who he can try to track down.
Much of the content is absurd, ludicrous even, but more worrying is the amount of money funneled into this military experimentation.
For all that, the book wanders about from person to person and topic to topic. It isn't able to be categoric about what actually happened and what didn't, what was real and what was speculation. There is a healthy dose of conspiracy theory mixed in, the entirety of linking what is happening now with what was experimented with in the 70s and 80s is the prime example - it just wasn't convincing.
For example in the 70s it was suggested that music was used to soothe natives as teh American military invade (or occupy, or whatever); in the early 2000's Iraq music was used for sleep deprivation through the continual playing of music (heavy metal, Matchbox Twenty or Barney the dinosaur - unclear which would be worse). The use of cultural humiliation - treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, offending them with sexually explicit behaviour strongly misaligned with their religion was also linked back to psychoanalysis done in the 70s an 80s, again I think unsuccessfully linked.
Not convinced I will go out looking for more from this author.
3 stars
Well, this is certainly an odd book. I am not sure what I expected, but it was not this.
Basically in the late 1970s a secret unit was formed within the US Army to research psychological advantages to be used in war. From the outright wacky (attempting to walk through walls) to the at best marginal - remote viewing, psychic spies, lsd experimentation, subliminal messaging, and of course the ability to kill goats just by staring at them!
Ronson is like a dog with bone, researching over a long period of time, regularly checking in with each of his contacts, pestering them with questions and asking them to recount events and eventually learning the names of other operatives who he can try to track down.
Much of the content is absurd, ludicrous even, but more worrying is the amount of money funneled into this military experimentation.
For all that, the book wanders about from person to person and topic to topic. It isn't able to be categoric about what actually happened and what didn't, what was real and what was speculation. There is a healthy dose of conspiracy theory mixed in, the entirety of linking what is happening now with what was experimented with in the 70s and 80s is the prime example - it just wasn't convincing.
For example in the 70s it was suggested that music was used to soothe natives as teh American military invade (or occupy, or whatever); in the early 2000's Iraq music was used for sleep deprivation through the continual playing of music (heavy metal, Matchbox Twenty or Barney the dinosaur - unclear which would be worse). The use of cultural humiliation - treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, offending them with sexually explicit behaviour strongly misaligned with their religion was also linked back to psychoanalysis done in the 70s an 80s, again I think unsuccessfully linked.
Not convinced I will go out looking for more from this author.
3 stars