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Age of Security
- Author
- Ruben Andersson
- Narrator
- Alan Medcroft
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 13 August 2026
- Run Time
- 11 hours 49 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
'This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’ ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN
'Restoring politics to its rightful place in human life is perhaps our most urgent task' KENAN MALIK, THE OBSERVER
'The time has come to fight back, and reading Ruben Andersson’s book provides a starting point’ THE DAILY MAIL
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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.
'Brilliantly thought-provoking' MARK GALEOTTI
'Propulsive and urgent … a panoramic exploration of our world' MARTHA SPURRIER
Critics Review
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'A forensic and furious book about the global phenomena of omni-surveillance and “Big Security” … should make for depressing reading, yet Andersson’s style is energetic, often humorous'
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New Statesman
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‘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’
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Mark Galeotti, author of Homo Criminalis
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‘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’
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The Spectator
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'We live in an age in which we seek less to solve problems than to contain them … Breaking out of the container of containment, and restoring politics to its rightful place in human life, is perhaps our most urgent task'
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The Observer
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‘[A] sobering, even scary survey of the modern obsession with surveillance … the time has come to fight back, and reading Ruben Andersson’s book provides a starting point’
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The Daily Mail
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'Andersson draws impressively on many examples from across the world to argue persuasively that we have moved into the era of ‘Big Security’, where the name of the game is protection of the status quo, invariably at the expense of the marginalised’
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openDemocracy
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‘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’
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Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory
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'A courageous and beautifully written book that takes us to the heart of the brave new world of surveillance capitalism'
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Professor Toby Green, author of A Fistful of Shells
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‘Propulsive and urgent, Age of Security is a panoramic exploration of our world with a vital demand that we change it for the better’
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Martha Spurrier
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Ruben Andersson
- Narrator
- Alan Medcroft
- Duration
- 11 hours 49 minutes
- Release Date
- 13 August 2026
- ISBN
- 9780008716400
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Control, privacy and safety in society, Political control and freedoms, Anthropology, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, Globalization, Modern warfare, Military and defence strategy, Warfare and defence
Synopsis
'This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’ ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN 'Restoring politics to its rightful place in human life is perhaps our most urgent task' KENAN MALIK, THE OBSERVER 'The time has come to fight back, and reading Ruben Andersson’s book provides a starting point’ THE DAILY MAIL ________________________________ 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. 'Brilliantly thought-provoking' MARK GALEOTTI 'Propulsive and urgent … a panoramic exploration of our world' MARTHA SPURRIER
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