A timely and critically important contribution to our current and on-going struggle against the debasement of democratic principles by agents of an American plutocracy, corrupt would-be autocrats like Donald Trump, and the reform of institutional flaws in our governance such as racism, the corruption of money in our political process, and the incompetence of the American federal response to the current Covid-19 pandemic, "Pro Truth: A Practical Plan for Putting Truth Back Into Politics" should have the widest possible readership............ http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/aug_20.htm#politicalscience ~ James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Mid West Book Review

5 Star rating: As the presidential election is slowly getting closer, it doesn’t hurt to prepare for the flood of news, opinions, fake news, alternative facts, accusations, disinformation and outright lies pouring into our social media accounts. Frankly, I don’t think that this book can turn this tide before the vote. But it surely will try. And even if we cannot turn this wave soon, we can prevent ourselves carried away with it. Besides I strongly recommend this reading to all, who can have any influence on what and how is published on facebook, twitter and likes. Even if you can’t or don’t step up for a more healthy public discussion, at least you will be aware of the consequences of your actions or idleness. What you can expect from this book? — An excellent review and summary on post-truth politics. It is almost frightening to read all the facts one by one. Precise, detailed, unbiased - yet not boring for a minute. (It is difficult to get bored when you worry about your future …) — A good wake up call for preparation before the presidential election for any side. Timely and informative. — Great analysis on the causes of the post truth tend. (including the usual descriptions of cognitive biases – we always got a package of them from Mr. Tsipursky.) — A good personal guide with many practical recommendations. — A good overview of Pro Truth Pledge initiative with calls for action and motivations from the authors. What you cannot expect from this book? I fear that at a society, election result level it will not be enough against the flood of expertly delivered and high budget manipulations and lies. You can repel the manipulation at a personal level (see above: good personal guide), you can influence your close environment, but we cannot realistically expect a breakthrough in short term. Fighting intentional, systematic and persistent lies is not a 100m sprint, it is a marathon. There are too many actors, too wide ranges of processes leading to the post truth politics. It is a global trend, with many dictators, autocratic leaders and hybrid regimes around the globe. However good initiative the Pro Truth Pledge is, more time is needed to turn this tide. Nevertheless, even the longest journey starts with the first step. ~ Nonsider, Amazon

5 Star rating: While reading it, I felt that Gleb Tsipursky had been reading my mind. The level of detail (stories, lies, reveals) is remarkable. If you haven't taken the Truth Pledge yet, this book will give you compelling reason to do so, and it doesn't matter what political persuasion best describes you. This is wisdom for our difficult times for all of us. ~ Linda B, Goodreads

This is an important, timely and practical book about how to reverse the trend towards post-truth politics, fake news and viral deception. Its starting point is the Pro-Truth Pledge (www.protruthpledge.com) which sets out 12 principles for sharing, honouring and encouraging truth in public life. With backgrounds in behavioural science and communication, the authors define and dissect many cognitive and emotional syndromes that exist within all of us, at least to some extent. These include various forms of cognitive bias and mental errors such as bias blind spot, confirmation bias, false consensus effect, illusory truth effect, single cause fallacy and backfire effect, where people simply defend their positions more vigorously when attacked. Then there are 10 forms of lies, including confabulation, deceptive hyperbole, ‘glittering generality’ and wilful ignorance, besides straightforward blatant lies. Finally, there is an extensive glossary with terms such as ‘filter bubble’ created by newsfeeds on social media and ‘tribal epistemology’ whereby we believe only our own side. It will come as no surprise to the reader that the main case study here is Donald Trump, along with parallels involving, for instance, Putin and Brexit. Almost all politicians will apologise and recant if caught out by fact checking from mainstream media. Not Trump – he never retracts anything, and simply attacks the messenger or mainstream press, portraying himself as a victim of a witch hunt and maintaining that the press cannot be trusted. Interestingly, these tactics are correlated with a decline among Republicans of trust in mainstream media, even when its facts are manifestly correct. It turns out that if something is repeated often enough (this applied to the US government claiming that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11), people come to believe it. There is extensive coverage of role of online and social media, including an analysis of people’s shifting adherence to genuine and fake news during the US 2016 election. We are all prone to manipulation unless we remain highly informed and constantly vigilant. This whole process undermines trust and democracy, hence the proposal and adoption of the Pro-Truth Pledge, which has already been signed by a significant number of public figures, and will hopefully feature more prominently in the upcoming election. What the authors call ‘rational communication’ contains a lot of sound advice on how to engage constructively with those of a different persuasion by prioritizing empathy over information and therefore engaging the psychological reality of the other. In this sense, collaborative truth-seeking is more strategic than debate and winning. Coming back to Trump, winning is for him the bottom line and any means is permissible. We can all learn how better to prioritise truth from the clear explanations and examples of this highly informative study by becoming more vigilant in our own analyses and interactions. ~ David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer