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The Captive Mind

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About this listen

The best-known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right.

Written in the early 1950s, when Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism and many Western intellectuals placed their hopes in the new order of the East, this classic work reveals in fascinating detail the often beguiling allure of totalitarian rule to people of all political beliefs and its frightening effects on the minds of those who embrace it.

©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics
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I enjoyed it but at time struggled to make sense of it until I went over it again. I found some sections intellectually stimulating.
It took longer than I expected to finish it.

Thought provoking and intellectually stimulating.

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I'm 70 years late to this, which is doubtless why I wasn't that impressed, as it feels more like a historical relic than something still relevant today. Decided to read (listen) to this now because a) I've just finished Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (and Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins) and this seemed like a good thematic follow-on (it really, really is), b) it was on my to read list, and c) it was about to drop out of the Audible "inckuded with membership" free selection.

I was listening to this at near double speed over three long weekend dog walks, so can't pretend to have paid full attention or caught everything. And there's definitely some interesting things here - as a document of its time its a valuable historical artefact. The idea of Ketman (basically hiding your inner thoughts) is useful - albeit this isn't the author's.

My problem is that the example of different responses to living under totalitarian regimes - the bulk of the book - feels obvious, with the anonymised stories of what *other* writers under Nazi and Soviet occupation did feeling more like "look, I may have worked with the Commies for a bit but now I'm a good guy - others were worse! Don't persecute me Joe McCarthy!"

This makes it feel more like an extended apologia rather than an insightful, personal analysis - and I was hoping for the latter.

Eloquent self-justification

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