Introducing: Brainwashed

Today we’re joined by lawyer and author Bryan Stevenson for a conversation about the historical Mother Emanuel AME church, and what it means to tell the story of American history through a single institution. Then Canadian journalist Paul Wells stops by for a look at the rise of ...  Show more

Some of our favourite guests of the year return to talk about books that helped meaningfully explain 2025. We talk about the evergreen appeal of Plato as well as Jewish identity with former Yale fascism scholar Jason Stanley. The déjà vu of trade wars and Canadian nationalism are ...  Show more

Brainwashed is an investigative series into the CIA’s covert experiments in mind control – from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. Listen to the voices of the survivors and their families, the conscientious objectors and the lawyers and journalists who have ...  Show more

In 1950, a new word ‘brainwashing’ entered the English language. From the paranoia of the Cold War a new type of Evil Scientist had emerged — the Mind Controller. But was there any truth to the fear?In the 1950s the CIA went to an eminent psychology Donald Hebb and asked him to i ...  Show more

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence and self harm.

Last fall, an Army reservist killed 18 people at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, before turning the gun on himself.

Dave Philipps, who covers military affairs for The T ...

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that nearly one in five adults in America lives with a mental illness. And we have plenty of evidence — from suicide rates to the percentage of Americans on psychopharmaceuticals — that our collective mental health is getting w ...