Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for Tripping on Utopia:
I’ll stick to beer, thanks.
Quick synopsis:
The people and science at the beginning of widespread drug experimentation.
Fact for Non-History People:
The CIA did experiments with LSD for mind control purposes.
Fact for History Nerds:
LSD was first synthesized by Swiss scientists in the 1930s.
My Take on Tripping on Utopia:
This review is going to be a choose your own adventure! You pick up Tripping on Utopia by Benjamin Breen and then….
Path 1: You are a reader who loves science, medicine, philosophy, and you know who Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Allen Ginsberg, and Timothy Leary are. You know what MKUltra is, and you want to know more about all these subjects. This book is perfectly suited for you. It is very well written, and you will probably give it 5 stars.
Path 2: You are like me. You’ve heard the names listed above before but know next to nothing about them other than that they did…. something. MKUltra is about LSD and the government made some people lose their minds, right? And you’d go to jail if you pulled any of this nonsense nowadays. You will recognize this book is very well written, but you can’t connect with the characters. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson’s backgrounds feel too rushed for you to feel connected to them. Other characters seem to dip in and out of the narrative. The actual experiments need more detail to fully understand their impact. You give the book 3 stars because you can tell the author knows what he is talking about, but there is just enough missing from the narrative that you can’t get into it.
Path 3: You are actually me and need to rate this book. You choose 4 stars. It’s not Breen’s fault you don’t love science. He’s certainly a talented writer and that alone deserves more than 3 stars, doesn’t it? Plus, some of the stories about tripping are pretty cool. You click 4 stars, and you go to bed.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing.)
Verdict:
Depends which path you choose! Buy it here!
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