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Every book Rebecca Lemov recommended on podcasts
Rebecca Lemov’s most recommended books
- Chaos by Tom O'Neill
- Island by Aldous Huxley
- The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz
- The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
- The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" by John Marks
- The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
- Violence and the Brain by Vernon H. Mark
Rebecca Lemov, appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, delves into the history of behavioral sciences, mind control experiments, and utopian community concepts. Throughout the discussion, Lemov references a variety of influential books and historical texts that informed her extensive research. She discusses Aldous Huxley's final novel, 'Island,' to illustrate historical attempts at sketching out non-abusive, small-scale utopian communities where human beings could flourish. To explore the complexities of belief systems and ideology, she points to Czesław Miłosz's 'The Captive Mind.' Lemov also examines historical institutional experiments by referencing John Marks's 'The Search for the Manchurian Candidate,' Michael Crichton's novel 'The Terminal Man'—which was based on a real psychosurgery patient—and Vernon H. Mark and Frank R. Ervin's 'Violence and the Brain.' Finally, she references Vance Packard's 'The Hidden Persuaders' to contextualize the historical rise of advertising and public relations.
Books recommended by Rebecca Lemov
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Chaos
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill is a deeply researched investigative book that explores hidden government programs, mind control experiments, and unanswered questions surrounding the Manson family murders.
Discussed“you're you're controlling all these people and then this idea that Have you read Chaos, the Tom O'Neil book?”
Where to get it
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Island
Island by Aldous Huxley is a utopian novel that presents a small-scale community where humans can flourish without oppression, serving as a companion piece to his earlier dystopian work Brave New World.
Discussed“Then his last book that he wrote before he died was called the island, than it was sketching out what he believed would be just what you describe, a a non-abusive a place where a small scale community where humans could flourish”
Where to get it
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The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz is a classic philosophical and political analysis examining why intellectuals and ordinary people succumbed to the appeal of totalitarianism and communism in the twentieth century.
Discussed“which was this book called the captive mind that somebody had left out by Chesaf Milos a po who was a Polish poet and he had grown up in Warsaw”
Where to get it
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The Hidden Persuaders
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard is a classic exposé that investigates how the advertising and public relations industries began deploying psychological and psychoanalytical techniques to manipulate consumer behavior and desires.
Discussed“they wrote books like the hidden persuaders to expose the effects of advertising and PR.”
Where to get it
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The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate"
The Search for the Manchurian Candidate by John Marks is a pioneering historical investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's covert MKULTRA behavioral modification and drug testing programs during the mid-to-late twentieth century.
Discussed“there's actually there's a section on it in John Marx's book, The Search for the Man Manurion Candidate.”
Where to get it
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The Terminal Man
Discussed“So, Michael Cretton wrote the book The Terminal Man, which was his second novel that was about Kyle. He masks the name of Kyle.”
Where to get it
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Violence and the Brain
Discussed“and this is extensively documented in published papers and in their book violence in the brain.”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| #2322 - Rebecca Lemov | The Joe Rogan Experience | 2025-05-15 | 7 |