The Instability of Truth
Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion
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The Instability of Truth
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Narrated by:
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Patty Nieman
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By:
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Rebecca Lemov
About this listen
An acclaimed historian of science uncovers the hidden history of brainwashing—and its troubling implications for today.
Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often don’t recognize it while it’s happening—unless we know where to look. As Rebecca Lemov writes in The Instability of Truth, “Brainwashing erases itself.” What we call brainwashing is more common than we think; it is not so much what happens to other people as what can happen to anyone.
The Instability of Truth exposes the myriad ways our minds can be controlled against our will, from the brainwashing techniques used against American POWs in North Korea to the “soft” brainwashing of social media doomscrolling and behavior-shaping. In our increasingly data-driven world, anyone can fall victim to mind control. Lemov identifies invasive forms of emotional engineering that exploit trauma and addiction to coerce and persuade in everyday life. Tracing the word “brainwashing” from deep in the files of an operative of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in the 1950s to the pioneering research of Robert Jay Lifton, to the public trials of cult leaders and the case of Patty Hearst, Lemov also studies how the idea of mind control has spread across the globe and penetrated courtrooms, secret labs, military schools, and today’s digital sites.
The Instability of Truth offers lessons from mind-control episodes past and present. Truth is always subject to question in more mundane walks of life than most people believe, and Lemov equips us for the increasing challenges we face from social media, AI, and an unprecedented, global form of surveillance capitalism. The Instability of Truth develops a rigorous new understanding of both brainwashing’s paradoxes and its emotional roots, by giving voice to brainwashers, the brainwashed, and third-party observers alike.
©2025 Rebecca Lemov (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A superbly crafted analysis of a universally deplored but seemingly irresistible technique.—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Provocative and illuminating…. Lemov’s deeply researched exploration reveals how the persuasive power wielded by charismatic figures can answer, in a warped way, a person’s yearning for self-reinvention and meaning.—Publishers Weekly, starred review
A chilling and spellbinding history of mind control, from prison camps to online algorithms.—Jill Lepore, author of If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future
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- The Science of Thought Control
- By: Kathleen Taylor
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
In Brainwashing, Kathleen Taylor brings the worlds of neuroscience and social psychology together for the first time. In elegant and accessible prose, and with abundant use of anecdotes and case-studies, she examines the ethical problems involved in carrying out the required experiments on humans, the limitations of animal models, and the frightening implications of such research. She also explores the history of thought-control and reveals how it persists all around us, from marketing and television to politics and education.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very beneficial book
- By M. on 03-25-20
By: Kathleen Taylor
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What We Value
- By: Emily Falk
- Narrated by: Emily Falk
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1
Amid the many competing priorities of our busy lives, it can feel difficult to make the right decisions―ones that feel aligned with the things we care about. Change can feel almost impossible. In this book, award-winning researcher Emily Falk reveals how we can transform our relationship with the daily choices that define our lives by thinking like a neuroscientist about what we value.
By: Emily Falk
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There Is No Place for Us
- Working and Homeless in America
- By: Brian Goldstone
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Brian Goldstone
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hit a nerve.
- By matt on 05-15-25
By: Brian Goldstone
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A History of the World in Six Plagues
- How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19
- By: Edna Bonhomme
- Narrated by: Veronique Olin
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
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Story3 out of 5 stars 1
A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health. Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease.
By: Edna Bonhomme
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The Other Ancient Civilisations
- Decoding Archaeology's Less Celebrated Cultures
- By: Raven Todd DaSilva
- Narrated by: Raven Todd DaSilva
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 2
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 2
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 2
Go beyond the popular stories of Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Inca, and the Maya, and uncover the rich diversity of people that are often overlooked. From the world's first peace treaty to daring expeditions across the Pacific, learn about twenty ancient and historic cultures from around the world that have had monumental impacts on our modern world.
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Body-First Healing
- Get Unstuck and Recover from Trauma with Somatic Healing
- By: Brittany Piper
- Narrated by: Brittany Piper
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2
Brittany Piper spent most of her life sitting across from conventional therapists recalling the painful stories of her trauma. But rehashing each harrowing event—being put into foster care as a baby, losing her brother in a car accident, enduring a brutal rape and a very public trial, and more—made her even more stuck. At a crossroads, she took her recovery into her own hands. On this journey, Brittany discovered emerging science that explains how and why trauma lives in our bodies, not in the story of what happened to us.
By: Brittany Piper
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Paradise Logic
- By: Sophie Kemp
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Cary Hite
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1
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Performance3 out of 5 stars 1
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1
It was decreed from the moment she was born. Twenty-three-year-old Reality Kahn would embark on a quest so great, so bold. She would become the greatest girlfriend of all time. She would be a zine maker, an aspiring notary, the greatest waterslide commercial actress on the Eastern Seaboard. She would receive messages from the beyond in the form of advice from the esteemed and ancient ladies magazine, Girlfriend Weekly. When she attends a party in Gowanus at a punk venue known as “Paradise,” Reality meets Ariel, who will become her boyfriend.
By: Sophie Kemp
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The Captive Mind
- By: Czeslaw Milosz, Jane Zielonko - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
The best-known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. Written in the early 1950s, when Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism and many Western intellectuals placed their hopes in the new order of the East, this classic work reveals in fascinating detail the often beguiling allure of totalitarian rule to people of all political beliefs and its frightening effects on the minds of those who embrace it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Every U.S. citizen should read this.
- By Tim Christenson on 09-27-20
By: Czeslaw Milosz, and others
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Ordinary Magic
- The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts
- By: Gregory M. Walton PhD
- Narrated by: Gregory M. Walton PhD, Hattie Tate
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2
The emotional questions we face can define our lives. If you’re expecting an interaction to go wrong, that expectation can make it so. That’s spiraling down. But as esteemed Stanford psychologist Greg Walton shows, when we see these questions clearly, we can answer them well. Known to social psychologists as wise interventions, these shifts in perspective can help us chart new trajectories for our lives. They help us spiral up. This is ordinary magic: The ordinary experiences that help us set aside the ordinary worries of life to unleash extraordinary change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So simple and so profound
- By S. Ma on 05-17-25
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Adaptable
- How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us
- By: Herman Pontzer PhD
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3
Adaptable takes us on a tour of the human body. In each chapter, we learn how our bodies navigate an uncertain world: how we grow and mature; how our brains develop and learn; how our hearts, lungs, and digestive systems deliver oxygen and nutrients; how we manage toxins, temperature, and water balance; how we move and reproduce; how our immune system keeps invaders at bay; and how we age and decline. Along the way, we learn how to take care of our remarkable bodies, and that the universe of healthy lifestyles is vast (we don’t need the latest fad diet or cleanse!).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Surprisingly Engaging
- By user7720393 on 04-11-25
Great research. But too hard to listen to.
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