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I Index Overall Rating
Readers
30/100Critics
36/100Scholars
89/100Author:
Amanda Montell
Publisher:
Harper
Date:
June 15, 2021
From SoulCycle to Scientology, we're all obsessed with cults. Linguist Amanda Montell examines the language cults use to draw us in.
What The Reviewers Say
The author’s experience as a linguist melds well with her research into the psychological underpinnings of cultish language, including interviews with several cult survivors.
... savvy, enlightening.
An empathetic listener, Montell takes careful note of the empty words that cult members turn to for solace. Though written in punchy and fun prose style, Cultish is more than a fascinating guide to the workings of cults; it’s also an infuriating window into just how starved people have been made to feel for community and structures of collective care..
Montell...takes the reader on a brisk, chatty, and sympathetically even-handed (sometimes overly so) tour through the widely varied forms that cultishness can take, and the role that language plays in cults’ magnetic power.
