This audiobook was by turns informative, engaging, and deeply upsetting. Newitz spells out the history of the use of propaganda in American warfare, including as far back as the war for independence, and the many wars against Indian nations in the attempt to empty the West of its original people to make the land available for white settlers. During the years around WWII, several key thinkers penned books on physiological operations; some also wrote science fiction under other pen names. The same tactics that fed military thought on propaganda was also used by early advertisers. The book also lays out the Cambridge Analytica project and how clearly it falls into the use of psychological weapons by American corporations against American citizens, and tactic which is supposed to be illegal. I listened to this on audio during the Trans Rights Readaton ] and I'm glad I got to it but some chapters on the 2016 election and current targeting of books, libraries, and queer people were not a fun time to listen to. Newitz ends with a short chapter on "Psy-Ops disarmament" and of course it points to all of the things the current administration is trying to destroy: public educations, a robust library system, trusted new sources, and free movement of citizens across borders.