In what is unquestionably the most comprehensive work on the psychology of warfare ever published, Peter Watson, London Sunday Times journalist and himself an accomplished psychologist, has unearthed the entire inventory of psychological studies prepared by "think tanks" and private researchers for Western governments since World War II—all of them virtually unknown and many of them still classified.

Watson's definitive account is nothing less than a complete catalog of psychology's often fanciful—occasionally grotesque—proposed applications to the serious business of waging war; from producing an effective fighting man to dealing with combat stress, from the determinants of loyalty through the techniques of interrogation and brainwashing, from the psychology of survival through the human factors in psychological warfare. Here are detailed accounts of experiments and studies by military psychologists which show, for example, that the psychological effects of chemical and biological warfare are far worse than the physical, that atrocities in war are invariably committed by "mild-mannered" soldiers, and that the most feared weapons in combat are those that do the least damage. Here too are experiments which border on the bizarre, such as attempts to test reactions of troops to extreme stress under the influence of hypnosis and psychedelic drugs, and equipping pigeons with radio direction finders for reconnaissance missions.

Mr. Watson conclusively documents that many—indeed, too many—of these "think tank" operations are pure exotica that sooner or later have to be aborted at astronomical expense to the public. This money could be far more productively and humanely spent, argues the author of this important and gripping book, on "defensive" research projects which "are designed to preserve lives rather than the reverse."

This fully documented account of how the military has used—and misused—psychological research will for a long time serve as the basic reference work on the subject. More than that, War on the Mind makes fascinating reading for all those interested in the varied applications, ranging from the ingenious to the bizarre and ludicrous, of psychology to men at war.