The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff | 4.20 | 3,482 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Nicholas Carr, Naomi Klein, Clive Lewis Mp, and 6 others. See all reviews

Ranked #7 in Capitalism, Ranked #25 in Consumer Behavior — see more rankings.

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.

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.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION
1. Home or exile in the digital future

I. THE FOUNDATIONS OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM
2. August 9, 2011: Setting the stage for Surveillance Capitalism
3. The discovery of behavioral surplus
4. The moat around the castle
5. The elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, corner, compete
6. Hijacked: The division of learning in society

II. THE ADVANCE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM
7. The reality business
8. Rendition: From experience to data
9. Rendition from the depths
10. Make them dance
11. The right to the future tense

III. INSTRUMENTARIAN POWER FOR A THIRD MODERNITY
12. Two species of power
13. Big Other and the rise of instrumentarian power
14. A utopia of certainty
15, The instrumentarian collective
16. Of life in the hive
17. The right to sanctuary

CONCLUSION
18. A coup from above

Acknowledgements
About the author
Detailed table of contents
Notes
Index less

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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism from the world's leading experts.

Nicholas Carr Whatever its imperfections, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is an original and often brilliant work, and it arrives at a crucial moment, when the public and its elected representatives are at last grappling with the extraordinary power of digital media and the companies that control it. Like another recent masterwork of economic analysis, Thomas Piketty’s 2013 Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the book challenges assumptions, raises uncomfortable questions about the present and future, and stakes out ground for a necessary and overdue debate. Shoshana Zuboff has aimed an unsparing light... (Source)

Naomi Klein From the very first page I was consumed with an overwhelming imperative: everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense. With tremendous lucidity and moral courage, Zuboff demonstrates not only how our minds are being mined for data but also how they are being rapidly and radically changed in the process. The hour is late and much has been lost already—but as we learn in these indispensable pages, there is still hope for emancipation. (Source)

Clive Lewis Mp Cant make the brilliant event below? Havent had a chance to read @shoshanazuboff groundbreaking book, ‘Surveillance Capitalism’? Then listen to this brilliant interview with the author as she explains the terrifying scale&ambition of Facebook/Google et al https://t.co/DCtNlFbmE0 https://t.co/ZX0YpW5pOo (Source)

Dilip Cherian Brave New World? Thanks @shoshanazuboff for that amazing book. It's compulsory reading for those trying to make sense of our world now. https://t.co/5nBJWoLS9p (Source)

Mohamed A. Elerian Good morning Three charts from the @FT 's "Ten charts that tell the story of 2019." (If you are interested in the third one in particular, you may find Shoshana Zuboff's book, "The Age of #SurveillanceCapitalism ," an interesting read #economy #trade #china #us #FacialRecognition https://t.co/HAQmIuV7dT (Source)

John Tasioulas 2019... Best book: Shoshana Zuboff, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power” Best political commentary: @HelenHet20 Best film @jokermovie Best restaurant: @farangLDN & @Trullo_LDN (London); Shinoki (Melbourne) (Source)

Rankings by Category

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is ranked in the following categories:

#67 in Analysis
#100 in Artificial Intelligence
#30 in Big Data
#70 in Commerce
#97 in Current Affairs
#40 in Cyber Security
#55 in Democracy
#79 in Internet
#86 in Networking
#53 in Social Media
#66 in Tech
#49 in Technology

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