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Bizarre and brilliant!
This book is an exemplary work in investigative journalism, and the amount and quality of painstaking research done by Ronson is outstanding. The central theme is the unconventional and unbelievable methods, including but not limited to, psychic spying, thought manipulation and invisibility for use in the military intelligence.
At times, you get a feeling that you're reading a war thriller novel with a touch of science fiction, only to wonder at last that all these attempts have been real, and the people mentioned are not just characters, but committed officers.
Ronson is so deft with the spellbinding narrative that the suspense he creates with every chapter compels you to turn the pages. He slowly lifts the veils, and leaves a part uncovered only to be revealed in the later pages where it fits logically, especially in the Eric Olson story.
Although the narrative of unearthing some of the chilling secrets of the US military moves back and forth, from 1950s to 2000s, from Cold War to the American debacle in Vietnam to the War on Terror, Ronson manages to maintain a logical structure.
The only thing that stops me from giving this a full 5 stars is that in the middle, there were too many names coming up too fast creating a little bit of mix-up.
Overall, this is a great work to get an insight into those ambitious minds who seriously and literally believed - 'Be all you can be'.
This book is an exemplary work in investigative journalism, and the amount and quality of painstaking research done by Ronson is outstanding. The central theme is the unconventional and unbelievable methods, including but not limited to, psychic spying, thought manipulation and invisibility for use in the military intelligence.
At times, you get a feeling that you're reading a war thriller novel with a touch of science fiction, only to wonder at last that all these attempts have been real, and the people mentioned are not just characters, but committed officers.
Ronson is so deft with the spellbinding narrative that the suspense he creates with every chapter compels you to turn the pages. He slowly lifts the veils, and leaves a part uncovered only to be revealed in the later pages where it fits logically, especially in the Eric Olson story.
Although the narrative of unearthing some of the chilling secrets of the US military moves back and forth, from 1950s to 2000s, from Cold War to the American debacle in Vietnam to the War on Terror, Ronson manages to maintain a logical structure.
The only thing that stops me from giving this a full 5 stars is that in the middle, there were too many names coming up too fast creating a little bit of mix-up.
Overall, this is a great work to get an insight into those ambitious minds who seriously and literally believed - 'Be all you can be'.
