The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature

This study chronicles the rise of psychology as a tool for social analysis during the Cold War Era and the concept of the open mind in American culture.

In the years following World War II, a scientific vision of the rational, creative, and autonomous self took hold as an essential way of understanding society. In The Open Mind, science historian Jamie Cohen-Cole demonstrates how this notion of the self became a defining feature of Cold War culture. From 1945 to 1965, policy makers used...