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

by Thom Hartmann

Book Overview

Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, the multinational corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576756270
• ISBN13: 9781576756270
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Take back your power. Take back your country.

This is Tom Hartmann's best and most indispensable book. In his last book, Screwed, he talked about how Republicans and right-wingers have screwed middle-class and working-class Americans. This book tells you how you can bring back the American Dream for yourself, for your family, and for your community. Stop subsidizing pampered, corrupt, and useless CEOs and heiresses with your tax dollars and and earnings.

Great read

I'm not quite finished, but this book is definately a worthwhile read. Thom goes through how people recieve the message in speeches, ads, and coversation. He shows you how to communicate and really get your point across. I am a huge fan of his radio show, and my high expectations for this book were certainly met. A great read.

Powerful words

This book brings a wealth of information in a format that is easy to read and understand. Although the lessons are complex, Thom's story-telling style dosed with humor and anecdotal background make the learning process enjoyable. Words are powerful when communication skills are honed, and this book will help create great communicators capable of active listening.

The missing piece of the puzzle

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.

If Persuasion is Power, This Book Can Enable You To Achieve Your Maximum

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 p