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Age of Security

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What to expect

'This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’ ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN

'Brilliantly thought-provoking' MARK GALEOTTI

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What would you give up to feel safe?

The security industry has captured our politics and our private lives. From rogue states to smart doorbells, someone is always keeping a watchful eye – and we’re paying a heavy price. Anthropologist Ruben Andersson shows how Big Security rose to power, generating unprecedented profits while failing to protect us. In this page-turning dispatch from security’s frontlines – across the divides separating political right and left and global rich and poor – he pursues police chiefs in Swedish suburbs, shelters with migrants in Mexico, bunkers down with peacekeepers in Mali and mingles with arms dealers in Paris.

Everywhere, he finds that our shared obsession with security is an act of retreat: high walls, constant surveillance and punitive policies offer the illusion of control while fuelling paranoia and precarity. Every tracking app installed, border fortified, or emergency law passed makes us more fearful and less free. Our age of security is a dystopian response to political failure – but it’s not too late to replace runaway security with a humanist vision where fear no longer controls us.

Privacy, freedom, democratic control – we have already given up so much in the name of safety. But once we see how security has trapped us, we can start to break free.

'Propulsive and urgent … a panoramic exploration of our world' MARTHA SPURRIER

Critics Review

‘We are safer now than ever, in the main. So why do we feel so insecure? A brilliantly thought-provoking study not just of our shrinking tolerance for risk, but also how cynical politicians and a massive global industry encourage us to trap ourselves in cages of our own making’
n Mark Galeotti, author of Homo Criminalisn
‘Do we actually want to live in this state of heightened supervision? Does it matter? And who cares? Those are the questions tackled in this book about the global shift towards a security culture and the possible cost of that shift’
n n The Spectatorn n
‘Surveillance capitalism is the ideology of our age and it's finally become an issue that animates and angers millions around the world. But what can we practically do about it? This book provides a sober and passionate examination into how we've allowed the security narrative to infect every aspect of our lives. This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’
n Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratoryn
'A courageous and beautifully written book that takes us to the heart of the brave new world of surveillance capitalism. Age of Security forces us to acknowledge the high price of the quest for a 'risk-free' world: it confronts the transformation of human values in the digital era, and shows how deeply we are all involved in this crisis'
n Professor Toby Green, author of A Fistful of Shellsn
‘Propulsive and urgent, Age of Security is a panoramic exploration of our world with a vital demand that we change it for the better’
n Martha Spurriern
‘The strength of the book lies in its focus on everyday life, describing from below this race for security which destroys everyone, including those who have perpetuated it. This is a must-read book that can convince a large audience to join a crucial debate’
n Professor Didier Bigon
‘Manages to combine engaging writing with scholarly rigour to tell a novel story about our age of security’
n Professor Faisal Devjin
Author Ruben Andersson
Narrator Alan Medcroft
Duration 11 hours and 49 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9780008716400
Format Audiobook
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Genre Anthropology, Control, privacy and safety in society, Globalization, Military and defence strategy, Modern warfare, Political control and freedoms, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, Warfare and defence
Availability AU, GB, IE

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