This Is Not Propaganda

By: Peter Pomerantsev

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

When information is a weapon, everyone is at war.

We live in a world of influence operations run amok, a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, Trump. We've lost not only our sense of peace and democracy - but our sense of what those words even mean.

As Peter Pomerantsev seeks to make sense of the disinformation age, he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, 'behavioural change' salesmen, Jihadi fan-boys, Identitarians, truth cops and much more.

Forty years after his dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, he finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia - but the answers he finds there are surprising. Part reportage, part intellectual adventure, This is Not Propaganda is a Pynchon-like exploration of how we can reimagine our politics and ourselves in a time where truth has been turned topsy-turvy.

©2017 Peter Pomerantsev (P)2019 Audible Ltd

must read to form crystal thinking

well structured, interesting topic, not verbose, excellent language style. interesting stories. thoughts provoking, recommend it worth the time.

A true masterpiece, engaging and insightful

This is a very deep and insightful analysis on topics such as narrative, information, world politics and human identity. And it is written in a way that makes it just a great piece of literature, engaging on so many levels.

Masterpiece propaganda

Read this book if you want to experienced - how propaganda is constructed. I argue - this book itself is the subtlest form of propaganda. Allow me to make my case.

Deeply one sided.
For a person who loves critical thinking and overal values freedom of thought - it soon becomes hard to listen, without losing own sanity. You are charged by never ending stream of carefully crafted and well positioned stories, labels, insults - designed to take you on a very well defined path towards an unquestionable truth. Well to be honest - there is a very slight imitation to question "the good side"... But only the madman would dare to question topics as sacred as democracy movement!

If you like a simplified worldview, this book is for you. Here you'll find, invisible to the public, marvel-like super heroes - bravely doing all they can to save the world from empires of pure evil (the usual suspects : Kremlin, Iran, Serbia,..) - ready to eat away all our souls (as if their "democratic" counterparts didn't commit any sins in their past or present, but the sins of our usual subjects - oh they are looked at with vigor and scrutiny). Somehow - writers conveniently forget to look in the mirror, to seek nuance, or look for signs of color vs painting it all as "white vs black", to look for deeper truths. And is not by accident. Such deeper looking questions - are not meant to be part of this story.

Because - this book is a propaganda.

You're taken on a very well defined path.
World is very simple: these guys are good, and these are the baddies. No need to question or look for nuances.
Instead - look here, at this next story...

But I have to admit - the book is a True Masterpiece - at story telling & framing. At some moments I found myself lost in the hipnosis of the story and it's endless stream of nearly impossible to verify so called facts, drawing me in deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole they designed. Honest applause.

Read it at your own risk, enter this door - knowing you will be taken into the world of shifting sand, smoke and twisted mirrors.

Learn from it - you definitely can.
Lose yourself - you most likely will.