The Men Who Stare at Goats
by Jon Ronson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jon RonsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-10-13
ISBN: 1439181772
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of The Men Who Stare at Goats
Book Review: Hilarious and scary...
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson is a hilarious but rather frightening account of "what happens when a small group of men - highly placed within the United States military, the government, and the intelligence services - begin believing in very strange things." The title comes from a program at Fort Bragg where, for a time, members of Special Forces tried to stare goats to death. Equally remarkable and crazy is the CIA's experimental clairvoyance program (it turns out thinking really hard about where Soviets subs are doesn't work), a general who tried to walk through walls and the use of the song "I love you" from Barney the Dinosaur as a torture device. Unsurprisingly, the military is not immune to human folly: there are those who believe fervently in woo and the paranormal. That these people wield tremendous coercive power just makes it all the more frightening.
The style is informal and journalistic, the content gripping and the book a pleasure to read. While there are no hard-core intellectual analyses, Ronson knows it's all bollocks - he lets the silliness speaks for itself. Overall, a fun book on a serious topic that will keep you interested throughout.
Summary of The Men Who Stare at Goats
Bizarre military history: In 1979, a crack commando unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known laws of physics and accepted military practice, they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and?perhaps most chillingly?kill goats just by staring at them. They were the First Earth Battalion, entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries. And they really weren?t joking. What?s more, they?re back?and they?re fighting the War on Terror.An uproarious exploration of American military paranoia: With investigations ranging from the mysterious ?Goat Lab,? to Uri Geller?s covert psychic work with the CIA, to the increasingly bizarre role played by a succession of U.S. presidents, this might just be the funniest, most unsettling book you will ever read?if only because it is all true and is still happening today.
Just when you thought every possible conspiracy theory had been exhausted by The X-Files or The Da Vinci Code, along comes The Men Who Stare at Goats. The first line of the book is, "This is a true story." True or not, it is quite astonishing. Author Jon Ronson writes a column about family life for London's Guardian newspaper and has made several acclaimed documentaries. The Men Who Stare at Goats is his bizarre quest into "the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush's War on Terror," as he puts it. Ronson is inspired when a man who claims to be a former U.S. military psychic spy tells the journalist he has been reactivated following the 9-11 attack. Ronson decides to investigate. His research leads him to the U.S. Army's strange forays into extra-sensory perception and telepathy, which apparently included efforts to kill barnyard animals with nothing more than thought. Ronson meets one ex-Army employee who claims to have killed a goat and his pet hamster by staring at them for prolonged periods of time. Like Ronson's original source, this man also says he has been reactivated for deployment to the Middle East.
Ronson's finely written book strikes a perfect balance between curiosity, incredulity, and humor. His characters are each more bizarre than the last, and Ronson does a wonderful job of depicting the colorful quirks they reveal in their often-comical meetings. Through a charming guile, he manages to elicit many strange and amazing revelations. Ronson meets a general who is frustrated in his frequent attempts to walk through walls. One source says the U.S. military has deployed psychic assassins to the Middle East to hunt down Al Qaeda suspects. Entertaining and disturbing. --Alex Roslin
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