{"product_id":"9781625343130","title":"Clearer Than Truth: The Polygraph and the American Cold War","description":"\u003cp\u003eA person strapped to a polygraph machine. Nervous eyes, sweaty brow, the needle trembling up and down. Few images are more evocative of Cold War paranoia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this first comprehensive history of the polygraph as a tool and symbol of American Cold War policies, John Philipp Baesler tells the story of a technology with weak scientific credentials that was nevertheless celebrated as a device that could expose both internal and external enemies. Considered the go-to technology to test agents' and employees' loyalty, the polygraph's true power was to expose deep ideological and political fault lines. While advocates praised it as America's hard-nosed yet fair answer to communist brainwashing, critics claimed that its use undermined the very values of justice, equality, and the presumption of innocence for which the nation stood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eClearer Than Truth demonstrates that what began as quick-fix technology promising a precise test of honesty and allegiance eventually came to embody tensions in American Cold War culture between security and freedom, concerns that reach deep into the present day.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Massachusetts Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47038260609264,"sku":"9781625343130","price":90.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781625343130_p0.jpg?v=1763864897","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781625343130","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}