Stories Are Weapons

Psychological Warfare and the American Mind

5 July 2024

Territory Rights — Worldwide.

Description

From the best-selling author of Four Lost Cities comes a sharp and timely book about the dark art of manipulation through weaponised storytelling

In Stories Are Weapons, best-selling author Annalee Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda and violent threats—the essential tool kit for psychological warfare—have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper and reaching its apotheosis with misinformation during twenty-first-century elections. The nation’s secret weapon has long been coercive storytelling, fashioned by operatives who drew on their experiences in the ad industry and as science fiction writers. Now, through a weapons-transfer programme long unacknowledged, it has found its way into the hands of culture warriors, in conflicts from school board fights over LGBT students to campaigns against feminist viewpoints. Stories Are Weapons delivers a powerful counter-narrative, as Newitz highlights the process of psychological disarmament, speaking with Indigenous archivists preserving their histories in new ways, activist storytellers and technology experts transforming social media.

Reviews

"Newitz is so skillful at elucidating such a tangled, morally contentious history that I never felt lost. " — Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"Fascinating, well-researched, addictive... Newitz has written what should be essential reading for our current world and years to come. " — Urban Waite, The San Francisco Chronicle

Also By: Annalee Newitz View all by author...

Hardback

9780393881516

160 x 236 mm • 272 pages

£22.00

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Ebook

9780393881523

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£22.00

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