File no. 042Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Party rewrites the past, shrinks the language and calls it peace. Orwell wrote it as a warning, and much of it reads like a user manual today.
Read the essayThe books behind the essays.
These are the books I keep coming back to on propaganda, power and the strange habits of modern life. Each one links to what I wrote about it.
Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Five filters decide what becomes news before any journalist sits down to write. Required reading for anyone who buys media or reads it.
Read the essayPropaganda by Edward Bernays
The founder of public relations explains, without embarrassment, how a few people steer the opinions of millions.
Read the essayConfessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
A former consultant describes how debt became a tool of influence over whole countries.
Read the essayThe WikiLeaks Files by WikiLeaks
Diplomatic cables read as a map of how power talks when it thinks nobody is listening.
Read the essaySimulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
When the copy replaces the original, people stop asking what was real. Baudrillard saw the feed coming decades early.
Read the essayCrimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte
A short, funny field guide to the bad arguments politicians, pundits and advertisers use every day.
Read the essayWarlords and Merchants by Kamal Dib
Who owns Lebanon, told through its banks, its families and its militias.
Read the essayThe Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A good man walks into a cynical society and gets called a fool for it. Still the best test of what honesty costs.
Read the essayBrave New World by Aldous Huxley
Orwell feared we would be controlled by pain. Huxley feared pleasure would do the job better.
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