The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century

Description

The time has come to deal with the unaccountable power of digital technology. Early efforts at regulation have been confused, contradictory and often counterproductive. No single person or government has a plan of action. In The Digital Republic, acclaimed author and barrister Jamie Susskind tackles one of the biggest political and social questions of our time. He explores how developments in AI, big data, social media and other technologies are having a profound effect on politics - and what that means for our societies. The Digital Republic is a call for political change, touching on the deepest issues of who we are and what we value most. He will take readers on a journey through a new system of ideas and governance - a digital republic - offering a vision of a world that is freer and fairer than our own. With a truly global outlook, Susskind's work is steeped in the tradition of republican thought, from ancient Greece and Rome to revolutionary France, illuminated by the most charismatic thinkers and ideas in European political history. Inspired by the great political essays of the past, from Rousseau's 'Social Contract', Mill's 'On Liberty' and Hamilton and Madison's 'Federalist Papers', The Digital Republic is a landmark work that will challenge us as we look towards the future.

Jamie Susskind is a barrister and the author of the award-winning bestseller Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech, which received the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize 2019 and was an Evening Standard and Prospect Book of the Year. He has fellowships at Harvard and Cambridge and currently lives in London.

Susskind steers a course to the future that is as convincing as it is shocking * Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times on FUTURE POLITICS * An impressive feat of intellectual organization ... To have written it all down so lucidly, engagingly and succinctly is a formidable achievement * Guardian on FUTURE POLITICS * Susskind thinks deeply, and writes with powerful clarity, about how technology is reshaping society and what we should do about it -- Bruce Schneier, author of DATA & GOLIATH