The True Believer is a 1951 book by American writer Eric Hoffer, in which the author discusses the psychological causes of fanaticism. The book was widely influential, and is still cited today. In 2002, the Book-of-the-Month Club ranked The True Believer number 23 on its list of the 100 most influential books of the 20th … Read more
The Freud Files is a fascinating book that explores the life and work of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Borch-Jacobsen does an excellent job of summarizing Freud’s complex ideas and providing readers with a clear understanding of his influential theory. Sigmund Freud was born in Austria in 1856. He studied medicine at the University … Read more
Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain by Kosslyn and Smith is a textbook used in cognitive psychology. It covers the topics of perception, attention, language, memory and thinking. The book does a good job of covering the basics of each topic, but does not go into much depth. The book is geared towards undergraduate students and … Read more
Acts of Meaning is a book about the importance of symbols. Jerome Bruner believes that culture is transmitted through the use of symbols. A symbol is something that stands for something else. A flag is a symbol of a country. It stands for the country’s national identity. A flag is also a symbol of the … Read more
“Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” is a provocative book by anthropologist David Graeber that challenges conventional wisdom about the nature of work and employment in the modern economy. The book seeks to identify and analyze what Graeber terms “bullshit jobs,” which he defines as positions that are so utterly pointless, even the person doing the job … Read more
The Shrinking of America: Myths of Psychological Change is a very helpful resource to understand the myths of psychotherapy. Though dated, it still unpacks the many inherent problems within the psychotherapeutic world and gives an insiders view of such. Zilbergeld was a practicing therapist for many years and his book is an outgrowth of his … Read more
In his book Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, Steve Salerno exposed the multi-billion dollar self-help industry as a fraud. His thesis is simple: the self-help movement has not helped Americans become more self-reliant, it has made us more helpless. In this blog post, we’ll provide a summary of Salerno’s key points and … Read more
In “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media”, Chomsky examines the ways in which the mass media can be used as a tool to control and manipulate public opinion. Chomsky breaks down his theory into five main filters: size, ownership, advertising, flak, and fear. Chomsky’s Five Filters of the Mass Media Size: The … Read more
Power. It’s what drives us. The pursuit of it is what motivates us. But what is power, really? And how can we get more of it? In his book “Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky,” Chomsky explores these questions in depth. Here’s a quick summary of his most important insights. Chomsky defines power as “the capacity … Read more
“Reflections on Language” was published in 1975 and contains some of Chomsky’s most important work on the nature of language. In it, he argues that language is an innate human ability and that we are born with a “language acquisition device” (LAD) which enables us to learn language. He also presents his famous “theory of … Read more