Reviews

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

Only show reviews with written explanations

brownaround's review

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adventurous informative lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.5

cubanpete's review against another edition

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5.0

The US army doesn't really have any serious alternative than to be wonderful

I had seen the movie so I sort of knew what to expect but this was still a major shocker. I laughed out loud on a few occasions whilst reading it which doesn't happen to me very often. It blows my mind - both in a good and a bad way - that this is not fictional. Other than being gobsmacked at the capacity for lunacy within our military and secret services (I refuse to believe the US is alone in this) I also learned a valuable lesson. Which is that humour and pop culture sometimes are deliberately used to make unacceptable practices okay in the eyes of the society. And that is a serious point. Now for the less serious...my favourite part has to be the use of

an Avril Lavigne CD

by military intelligence in their work. I mean, what?

fistpuncher's review

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3.0

This one really didn't compare to the last Ronson book I read (The Psychopath Test). It was interesting at times, but felt like most of the accounts were based too much on hearsay, speculation or the word of people who we a tiny bit insane.

yates9's review

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3.0

Ron Johnson is a talented and entertaining journalist, and a great reader for the audio versions of his book. The story is intriguing following the bizarre path of nonlethal weapons in warfare and use of “weird science” to affect the minds of fighters and prisoners alike. Science and pseudoscience intermingle, and find ways to survive in the massive machinwa of defense spending. Pseudoscience and science are presumed applied to real world situations with unisual ethical dilemmas.

The problem is that Ron makes this all a bit too fun and entertaining while neither thinking through what a reasonable alternative route might have been for the army nor whether the suggested actions that occurred were outside the ethical framework we accept. He could take his story a bit more seriously and leave us with a bit more insight.