I really enjoy Annalee Newitz's writing and I like this topic a lot. My university training is in sociology / history / poli sci, so I am familiar with the kind of tasks that the author faced in approaching this topic. It's a HUGE topic. I think there are at least 3 PhD theses in this book. I have really enjoyed hearing they author present the material as shorter readings or podcasts. As a single book, it felt a bit disjointed. It seemed like there was an over-reliance on a few sources, and the conclusions/summary could have been a lot stronger.

I really liked the material discussing the intentional suppression of truth and repression of indigenous people -- that could have been a book in itself. I hope the author plans to take some of this material and develop it. I'd love to see more details on "who benefits" from the intentional propaganda, as well as a stronger "plan" and more tangible outcomes for counteracting psyops / untruthful propaganda efforts.

Stories Are Weapons is a book exploring propaganda and storytelling in the U.S. historically, and in the present. I think anyone interested in disinformation, especially in our current digital age will get something out of what Newitz examines in this book. Newitz highlights propaganda throughout history used to shape public thought on war, Indigenous peoples, comics, and much more.

Unlike other works I've consumed about disinformation and propaganda, Stories Are Weapons interestingly examines how storytelling and advertising are tools that have been used for psychological warfare. While these ideas may not be new, the way Newitz expands on these ideas feels fresh. Newitz explores these ideas with fantastic, fully examined examples that were incredibly interesting. I learned so much from this book.

While fixing these issues is complex and seemingly impossible, Newitz does offer some hope for the future. Overall, Stories Are Weapons effectively highlights just how ingrained and normalized propaganda and disinformation are in our society. I think anyone could gain from reading this book.

It used to be we knew who our friends were and who we were fighting against. Maybe sometimes there was a fifth column working to undermine us, but even that term coined in the Spanish Civil War is less than a hundred years old. Today, though, radically open platforms of so-called “social media” act as what Sacha Baron Cohen called them in 2019, “the greatest propaganda machine in history.” I worked with him on some of the research behind that statement five years ago and, on all evidence since then, it is clear that bad actors are indeed sowing social division wider and deeper than ever before. Their lies can have effects at a scale and with a perversity that previously was the realm of science fiction.

Ms. Newitz does a fantastic breakdown of propaganda, and how it can knowingly and unknowingly play out in the stories we tell in the media and popular spheres. Particularly relevant read in light of the everything happening recently.

More of a 3.5.

The topic of propaganda is very relevant to our times, even more so in the eve of the election this year. So this is a very timely book and I learnt a lot about how propaganda has been used since around WW2 till now, especially during the recent elections. But the various small stories felt disjointed. Also, the issue of propaganda and its connections to the various rising fascist movements across the globe is a very serious threat, and I felt the book was too small to cover the gravity of it. The solutions presented about handling propaganda and misinformation felt rudimentary and don’t inspire too much confidence about the upcoming elections. But overall, still an informative book and can work as a good primer on the topic.

I would love to read this with undergraduate students. It's helpful to get the bigger picture on used of story (PSYOPS) across time. I think for many undergraduate students there is a sense this is a problem of the internet or social media more specifically and it is too overwhelming to have a means of resisting. Newitz covers how we might resist too. Loved the coverage of scifi.

What was first intended to be an article, was expanded to a book length investigation of the American tradition of using stories as just another tool in the arsenal of political control and public perception. Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind presents a condensed history of psychological warfare in the United States and looks at key cultural conflicts such as the wars against Native Americans, the eugenics movement and the influencing and shaping of recent elections via social media.

Like other works of history, it shows that to some degree American politics have always been filled with intolerant and critical or insulting language. There is also repeated calls for our authoritarian focus, despite our supposed democratic focus.

Among Newtiz's many points, one of the key weakness of our modern world is the speed with which communication can occur. This leaves many just responding instead of taking the time to consider and reflect. A second important point is the promise of fiction, through it one can create a different world that has the potential to help shape our true one. While not discussed, consider technologies created due to someones desire to have and use something first seen in Star Trek or Star Wars.

Stories Are Weapons is a welcome clear and concise summary of our current fragmented discourse and recommended reading for readers of psychology, contemporary America, American history or storytelling.

I don't know what I expected of this book but wow, what a wild ride through history, science fiction, psychological warfare and even alternative libraries. Fascinating, thorough, and one of Newitz's more compelling nonfiction adventures. Recommended for anyone who's lived through recent events and wondered whether they or the world had gone mad.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher W. W. Norton & Company for an advance copy of this history of the rise of disinformation and propaganda, how much of our history has been created by this, and how it can only get worse.

Humans don't like to admit this, but they are easy to fool. Which is fine when it come to sleight of hand magic tricks, much worse when it comes to picking presidents, or believing or not believing medical professionals. Also humans hate to admit that they made a mistake, and will sometimes double down on their erroneous thinking, as I am sure many of us have noticed. Being told that something is real, especially if the story starts small and gets bigger over time is a good way to do this. We see this all the time today. A little story feeds into a larger narrative and soon the narrative has been hijacked. Which leads to problems. People being killed problems. Everything seems to be weaponized now, video games, movies, comics, climate change, wanting fresh water, health and sex. It's draining but it is here. Novelist and journalist Annalee Newitz in Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind looks at the rise of disinformation, how it helped to shape history, and what the future holds.

The book looks at propaganda and disinformation with profiles on a large cast of people, some who I had heard of but not in the ways that Newitz describes them. The book begins with a man with a problem. How to get woman to smoke cigarettes. This man Edward Bernays, happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud, so he had a little bit more insight on how the human brain worked. Bernays turned cigarettes into an act of rebellion. Woman shouldn't be told by their husbands not to smoke. They were torches of freedom, and let it burn brightly. Sales went up and I am sure so did cancer rates. Bernays also went on to help overthrow a government, but I won't ruin that story. Benjamin Franklin during the Revolutionary War printed a false newspaper about British atrocities, which was picked up in England as a true account, and came back to America with the imprimatur of truth. Newitz looks at how the idea of brainwashing came about, the programs run by governments, and groups not friendly to governments, and order.

Not only did I enjoy this book, but I learned quite a lot. Newitz has done a tremendous amount of research, and even better has a a style that does not overwhelm the reader. One of my favorite sections was about the science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith. I was familiar with a few of his stories, but had no idea that Smith was really Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, a scholar of China, and an a Army officer with a background in psychological warfare. As a writer of science fiction, Newitz knows the importance of world building, and this was something that Smith was known for, creating stories that seemed of their time, with an intimacy that was rare. Newitz discusses these stories and how a good disinformationist will make the little bits seem real, with the assumption being that the big bits have to be real too. Newitz uses plenty of examples from history and the present day to explain this manipulation.

Writing a book about disinformation will probably bring out the people who believe the disinformation. Well what abouts, are probably going to fill these reviews. Newitz carefully lays out how people have been fooled since the days of sitting around a fire in a cave. The techniques have changed but not the motivation. This is the thrid book I have read by Newitz, and I think this is the most important. A really clear view at our world today.

Newitz tackles a very big project here, essentially this history of propaganda. There are certainly some interesting and well told stories that are part of this book. It's worth reading just for the overview of some of the biggest propaganda stories tackled in the book. However, perhaps because it is so ambitious, it feels as if there is not enough holding together all of the examples used in this book. Of course, every story is an example of some form of propaganda, but there were many to choose from and it's not clear why these in particular were chosen. At times I felt as I was randomly leaping around history without knowing exactly why. In short, I think it would help to have a larger story connecting the various stories told in this book. I would also love to see a deeper dive into what we can potentially do to address these challenges. The suggestions at the end were interesting, but all rather experimental, or untested. I would have really enjoyed if these could have been connected to some of the stories in the book. Are there things we've learned from the examples that can be used moving forward?

Despite these potential drawbacks, if you're interested in propaganda, you'll want to check this one out.

This is an opinion book that blames an ideology the author does not agree with, as propagandists.
Everything the author accuses one set of people doing, the author does in this book.
This book is not educating readers about how to recognize manipulation and propaganda, but instead rails against Science, History, and Common Sense.