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THE TELEGRAPH BEST BOOKS OF 2025 | THE GUARDIAN BRILLIANT BOOKS TO READ IN 2025

‘Massively important…Zmigrod is a joyful and compelling writer’ THE SUNDAY TIMES

‘Fascinating, insightful, lucidly and entertainingly written’ A. C. GRAYLING

‘Filled with insightful findings, this book shows that ideological extremism and polarization are not just problems to fret about but puzzles that can be studied and understood’ STEVEN PINKER

‘Extraordinary, eye-opening and startlingly original’ CASS R. SUNSTEIN

Why are some people radicalised?
Who is most susceptible to ideological thinking?
Can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas?

In today’s polarised world, The Ideological Brain is essential reading to foster a more informed, resilient and freer society. Packed with Dr Leor Zmigrod’s groundbreaking new research, it uncovers the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours, and zooms into the processes happening inside each of us to shows how to spot – and stop – rigid thinking in ourselves and others.

With captivating real-world examples, like how a simple card sorting game can reveal your entire approach to life, Dr Leor Zmigrod reveals how cognitive rigidity – struggling to adapt to new rules – mirrors the rigidity with which you cling to social and political ideologies. While some individuals are more susceptible to dogmatic thinking than others, all of us can strive to be more flexible.

Regardless of your political stance, this book will challenge you to reassess your convictions – and what they are doing to your brain.

Publisher Review

Filled with insightful findings, this book shows that ideological extremism and polarization are not just problems to fret about but puzzles that can be studied and understood — Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature An extraordinary, eye-opening and startlingly original book, showing what ideology does to the human brain, and casting a bright new light on the sources and nature of dogmatism, ideology and open-mindedness. Packed with insights, this is a remarkable achievement — Cass R. Sunstein, co-author of Nudge Fascinating, insightful, lucidly and entertainingly written, Zmigrod’s account illuminates the debate about the nature of ideology and the power it exerts, by bringing cognitive neuroscience – in fact, an intriguing development of it: ‘political neuroscience’ – to bear on both. An educative, rewarding, troubling, but ultimately hopeful, book — A. C. Grayling, author of The History of Philosophy A fascinating and important exploration of the causes of cognitive rigidity and of the factors that make some people more vulnerable to it than others. Leor Zmigrod draws on neuroscience, psychology and philosophy in her quest to understand why and how some people are drawn to authoritarian thinking and even to terrorism while others are able to question and resist dominant ideologies — Nigel Warburton, author of A Little History of Philosophy This remarkable book tells us something fascinating and heartening about the neuroscience of our inflexibilities and our dogmatisms. Lucid and eloquent, The Ideological Brain couldn’t be more timely — Adam Phillips, author of Missing Out The notion that political phenomena would somehow exist in a realm separate from that of human life regulation is pure fiction, as Leor Zmigrod demonstrates so clearly. Her book is a must read — Antonio Damasio, author of Feeling and Knowing