Books › The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
912 pages
A monumental, dread-inducing masterclass that provides the exact vocabulary needed to understand how the digital world is strip-mining human autonomy.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like putting on a pair of glasses that suddenly reveals the invisible, terrifying architecture of the modern world. It is a steady, intellectually demanding journey through a dread-soaked landscape, where the ambient conveniences of digital life are exposed as tools of unprecedented extraction. The prose is dense and academic, yet it thrums with an urgent, prophetic energy, arming the reader with a brand-new vocabulary to describe the theft of human experience. It is not a light or breezy read; rather, it is a monumental, paradigm-shifting tome that demands your full attention. It will deeply satisfy tech skeptics, policy nerds, and anyone willing to confront the chilling reality of how our behavior is commodified.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- dystopian
- intellectually rigorous
- oppressive
- Tone
- urgent
- authoritative
- academic
- prophetic
- alarming
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- commodification of human experience · erosion of autonomy · invisible power structures · technological overreach · behavioral modification
- The writing
- Dense, scholarly, and meticulously structured, employing a powerful new lexicon to name previously invisible forces.
- The arc
- Transitions from a vague, ambient unease about modern technology into a sharp, terrifyingly articulated understanding of systemic exploitation.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave deep, systemic critiques of modern society and aren't afraid of a heavy, intellectually demanding tome.
Content notes
- existential dread
- surveillance themes
About the book
"Shoshana Zuboff, named "the true prophet of the information age" by the Financial Times, has always been ahead of her time. Her seminal book In the Age of the Smart Machine foresaw the consequences of a then-unfolding era of computer technology. Now, three decades later she asks why the once-celebrated miracle of digital is turning into a nightmare. Zuboff tackles the social, political, business, personal, and technological meaning of "surveillance capitalism" as an unprecedented new market form. It is not simply about tracking us and selling ads, it is the business model for an ominous new marketplace that aims at nothing less than predicting and modifying our everyday behavior--where we go, what we do, what we say, how we feel, who we're with. The consequences of surveillance capitalism for us as individuals and as a society vividly come to life in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism's pathbreaking analysis of power. The threat has shifted from a totalitarian "big brother" state to a universal global architecture of automatic sensors and smart capabilities: A "big other" that imposes a fundamentally new form of power and unprecedented concentrations of knowledge in private companies--free from democratic oversight and control"--
"In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit-at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future--if we let it."--Dust jacket.
Description from Open Library.
Books like The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
See why they match
The Attention MerchantsTim WuA revelatory, slightly unsettling journey through the history of how our focus became the world's most valuable commodity.
The Glass CageNicholas CarrA thoughtful, cautionary exploration of how our increasing reliance on automation and screens is quietly reshaping the human experience.
Data and GoliathBruce SchneierA sobering, meticulously documented wake-up call about the invisible webs of surveillance that track our every digital and physical move.
This Is Not PropagandaPeter PomerantsevA dizzying, globe-trotting descent into the funhouse mirror of modern disinformation and the weaponization of reality.
TechnopolyNeil PostmanA sharp, prophetic warning about the ways our tools have quietly become our masters, delivered with wit and humanist warmth.
Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and ThinkKenneth CukierAn eye-opening, anecdote-rich exploration of the invisible digital forces reshaping our world, leaving you both awestruck and slightly paranoid.