Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision [Hardcover]

Thom Hartmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, global corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a national radio host, he breaks down the structure for effective communication, sharing exercises and examples for practical application.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

As you read deeply in this book, you'll see things you hadn't realized were there--in everything from advertising to political rants. You'll learn the three ways people absorb information and how to appeal to each to get your message across, the kinds of words to use when trying to sway people and the kinds to avoid. why politics is all about stories and how knowing what those stories are will help you understand and connect with your audience, and much more.

Whether you're a politician, an activist, a volunteer, or a concerned citizen, you'll develop a strong sense for how to reach into that part of the collective human psyche where we truly do have the power to create a new world.

From the Back Cover

The Art and Science of Political Persuasion

Too many Americans are acting against their best interests, buying into a right-wing line whose practical effect is to leave them marginalized and struggling. Why are the representatives the Right able to make their message so appealing? Because they've learned the techniques of effective communication--and you can too. Drawing on his rich background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a nationally syndicated Air America radio host, Thom Hartmann tells how to communicate the progressive message in a compelling and persuasive way. He explains what science has learned about how people actually perceive information and shows how to use this knowledge to truly connect with people. Cracking the Code gives you the tools you need to refute right-wing propaganda and reclaim America as a nation of We the People.

"No one communicates more thoughtfully or effectively on the radio airwaves than Thom Hartmann. He gets inside the arguments and helps people to think them through--to understand how to respond when they're talking about public issues with coworkers, neighbors, and friends. This book explores some of the key perspectives behind his approach, teaching us not just how to find the facts, but to talk about what they mean in a way that people will hear."
--Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen

"Thom Hartmann's book is an excellent primer in communication techniques. But unlike other message makers, Hartmann has genuine substance. He is restoring the radical populist tradition to the mainstream of our culture. Much of what we revere as Americans, Hartmann believes, was created by radicals who simply were ahead of their time."
-- Tom Hayden

"Thom Hartmann ought to be bronzed. His new book sets off from the same high plane as the last and offers explicit tools and how-to advice that will allow you to see, hear, and feel propaganda when it's directed at you and use the same techniques to refute it. His book would make a deaf-mute a better communicator. I want him on my reading table every day, and if you try one of his books, so will you."
--Peter Coyote, actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall "In Cracking the Code, Thom Hartmann, America's most popular, informed, and articulate progressive talk show host and political analyst, tells us what makes humans vulnerable to unscrupulous propagandists and what we can do about it. It is essential reading for all Americans who are fed up with right-wing extremists manipulating our minds and politics to promote agendas contrary to our core values and interests."
--David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community and When Corporations Rule the World and board chair of YES! magazine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; First Edition edition (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576754588
• ISBN-13: 978-1576754580
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thom Hartmann, who started in radio in 1968, is also an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The co-founder (with his wife, Louise) of The New England Salem Children's Village (1978) and The Hunter School (1997), he has led national innovations in the areas of residential treatment for abused children and private/public education for learning-disabled children. Hartmann is the four-time Project Censored Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of nineteen books currently in print in over a dozen languages on five continents. He is the former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, and has helped set up hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and refugee centers in India, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, Russia, and the United States through the German-based Salem International program. Formerly rostered with the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist, founder of The Michigan Healing Arts Center, and licensed as an NLP Trainer by Richard Bandler (who wrote the foreword to one of Thom's books), he was the originator of the revolutionary "Hunter/Farmer Hypothesis" to understand the psychiatric condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). A guest faculty member at Goddard College in Vermont, he also synthesized the "Younger/Older Culture model" for describing the underpinnings - and possible solutions - to the world's ecological and socio-political crises, suggesting that many of our problems are grounded in cultural "stories" which go back thousands of years. His most recent books are "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class," "The Edison Gene," "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call to Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Persuasion is Power, This Book Can Enable You To Achieve Your Maximum, October 25, 2007

By 

Robert Kall "Rob Kall of Opednews.com" (Newtown, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision (Hardcover)

Thom Hartmann, one of the top progressive talk radio "stars,", who replaced Al Franken on Air America Radio, has delivered a gift to anyone who wants to persuade others. It will be required reading for anyone trying convince people to act, take a stand or vote in some way.

This book is ALL about how to communicate, how to reach, how to persuade. There are books that talk about this based on moral/cultural values, books that talk about neuropsychological considerations, that talk about the use of narrative and story, books about hypnotic elements, like trance and pacing, on framing, on motivation... lots of books. This book ties all those different ideas and approaches together, in an easily understandable, coherent package.

As founder publisher of opednews dot com, publishing 1200 to 1500 articles a month, reaching close to half a million unique visitors a month, it's my job to have a pretty good idea about what makes for good writing and persuasion. We've published 45 articles, at the time of the writing of this review, by Hartmann, and he's one of the best at at effectively getting across a message and reaching people.

As a conference organizer for 15 years, running conferences on the brain, peak performance, the art, science and application of story, on positive psychology and optimal functioning... I've worked with many hundreds of speakers. Thom Hartmann is one of the best. That's why I'd have him speak on how to persuade, how to get people to change their minds. At the conferences, he trained trainers-- educators, writers, storytellers, psychologists and psychotherapists, screenwriters, salesmen. And he always got the highest reviews for the meeting.

There's a reason Thom Hartmann can pull all the different arts and sciences of communicating-- persuading, changing minds, changing the way people think and understand together-- and that's because he's integrated all these skills into his life, into the way he functions in the world.

When you look at the many people who have written most books on persuasion, communication, framing, etc. you tend to find people who are academics. George Lakoff, framing expert, and author of Don't Think of an Elephant, is a great example He's lived his life as a professor and researcher. His ideas on framing are great. I started reading Lakoff back in the 1980s. But Hartmann's book covers so much more territory, so many other considerations involved in persuasion, in winning hearts and minds.

Hartmann is not an academic. He's a chronic entrepreneur, and in all the different incarnations of his career, communication has played a central role-- developing a major advertising agency in Atlanta, running dozens of forums on compuserve, when compurserve was bigger than AOL, and most recently doing talk radio-- and rising to be one of the top progressive talk show hosts in America. This is walking the talk. He's used the tools he's discovered, developed and integrated in a way that has brought him to the peak of success.

The wonderful thing is that Hartmann is brilliant at sharing the secrets to cracking the code to truly connect with, reach and get people to change their minds. It is very rare. Most great authors are terrible at creating books on how to write, for example. Hartmann delivers pure gold. If you just read one chapter in this book, any chapter, you'll find you have powerful new knowledge you'll be able to use to make yourself more effective. Read the whole book and you will be on the path to dramatically increasing your power to most effectively touch and move people.

The sub-title of the book, How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision, hints at Thom's progressive viewpoint. If you're a liberal, progressive or lefty, you'll really like his writing on the history and evolution of the liberal and conservative mindsets. If you're a conservative you'll really like it too. This book goes way beyond Frank Luntz's book, WORDS THAT WORK, in providing practical ideas and strategies you can use. It is clear that the publishers are targeting people on the left, primarily, with this book. But it will be VERY valuable to anyone who wants to better understand how to persuade and change minds, including people in sales and education.

The book also covers one more key consideration--- the integrity-- he calls it the "ecology" of communication. Is the communication good for the world, for people? Is it honest? It's nice to have a master, at his full power, sharing his greatest tools and secrets, insisting that for the full power to be achieved, integrity and consideration of the greater good is essential.

If the Democrats don't tap Hartmann to plan their political strategies for 2008, they're crazy. Meanwhile, don't be surprised if there are a lot of right wingers reading the book without the dust jacket, hiding who they are reading... the smart ones, anyway.

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The missing piece of the puzzle, October 29, 2007

By 

Kenneth Brosky (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision (Hardcover)

Consider this the penultimate conclusion to the Thom Hartmann trilogy. In "We The People," Hartmann taught us about civics and our constitution. In "Screwed," Hartmann explained how our basic rights were be usurped by coporations in favor a free-market system that benefits only the rich. Now, Thom is teaching us how to fight back. By breaking down and decoding the language that has been used to deceive a massive number of American people, we can learn how to use that very language to educate others who fall for things like "Islamofascism" and live in fear and fight back with our own tools for restoring democracy.

All of Thom's books are easy to read, and this one is no exception. After having spent a couple years now as one of the top hosts at Air America Radio, it shows in Thom's writing. "Cracking the Code" feels like Thom is in the room talking, explaining, and backing up his information just like he does every day on his talk show. If you're interested in learning about the marketing of language in our current political system, this is a must-have.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How to REALLY Understand What Politicians Tell Us, December 3, 2007

By 

Frederick S. Goethel "wildcatcreekbooks" (Central Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision (Hardcover)

When I purchased this book, I was expecting an extension of Hartmann's work from his last book. It was, to a degree that, but also something totally different. While Hartmann is an unapologetic liberal, this book can be used by either side to determine what politicians are telling us.

A mixture of politics and psychology, the book details how people communicate and gives the reader numerous examples throughout. He explains, in depth, the signals that are given through communication to talk with a particular segment of voters, and why these phrases and words are so effective at sending the desired method.

I have always been leery of "pop" psychology, and this book proved to be no different. I did, however, use the advice in this book to follow several politicians speeches, and realized what he is saying is true.

A great book if you want to be able to decipher the language of politicians, or be able to persuade people to your side of the argument. While written from a liberal standpoint, conservatives would do well to read this, as it will work both ways.