Stories Are Weapons

Psychological Warfare and the American Mind

Annalee Newitz

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Hardback

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English

WW Norton & Co
24 July 2024

Media studies; International relations; Digital lifestyle

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 nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online. America's secret weapon has long been coercive storytelling. And there's a reason for that: operatives who shaped modern psychological warfare drew on their experiences as science fiction writers and in the advertising industry.

Now, through a weapons-transfer program long unacknowledged, psyops have found their way into the hands of culture warriors, transforming democratic debates into toxic wars over American identity. Newitz zeroes in on conflicts over race and intelligence, school board fights over LGBT students, and campaigns against feminist viewpoints, revealing how, in each case, specific groups of Americans are singled out and treated as enemies of the state. Crucially, Newitz delivers a powerful counternarrative, speaking with the researchers and activists who are outlining a pathway to achieving psychological disarmament and cultural peace.

Incisive and essential, Stories are Weapons reveals how our minds have been turned into blood-soaked battlegrounds-and how we can put down our weapons to build something better.

By: Annalee Newitz
Imprint: WW Norton & Co
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 493g
ISBN: 9780393881516
ISBN 10: 0393881512
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 24 July 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Annalee Newitz is a journalist and author of science fiction and nonfiction, including the national bestseller Four Lost Cities. They write for the New York Times and New Scientist and cohost the Hugo Award–winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

Reviews for Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind

A penetrating, passionately-reasoned analysis of how propaganda and disinformation have been used as tactics of both hard and soft wars, and how we continue to be manipulated today. This is a storyteller's account of the devastating force of storytelling.--Angela Saini, author of The Patriarchs and Superior Annalee Newitz always sees to the heart of complex systems and breaks them down with poetic ferocity.--N.K. Jemisin, author of the Broken Earth trilogy These days, we all feel besieged by divisive and destructive messages. As Annalee Newitz expertly shows, that's no accident. Illuminating and energizing, Stories Are Weapons can help us defuse the propaganda bombs going off all around us. It also shows how we can come together to tell different stories--stories to shed light in the darkness, make sense amid chaos, and forge hope and community instead of fear and isolation.--Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecurity and co-founder of The Debt Collective