Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Ruthlessly Targets Children

Description

The author of the international bestseller The Corporation investigates the shocking exploitation of children by big business There is now an estimated 1 trillion dollars of buying power in the hands of children. Tens of millions of children world-wide are prescribed psychotropic drugs today, compared to close to none in 1980. Food and drink industries spend billions each year marketing junk food to children. This is the story of how big businesses are transforming our children into obsessive and narcissistic mini-consumers, media addicts and pharmaceutical industry guinea pigs. In this insightful and chilling exploration, Joel Bakan throws a brilliant light on the ruthless manipulation of children and on our failure to protect them.

Joel Bakan is professor of law at the University of British Columbia. A Rhodes Scholar and former law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, he holds law degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Dalhousie Universities. An internationally renowned legal authority, Bakan has written widely on law and its social and economic impact. He is the author of the bestselling and critically-acclaimed The Corporation- The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power.

Powerrful...we are allowing our kids to be abused right under our noses, and we don't even know it -- Doug Johnstone * Independent on Sunday * A truly terrifying book...clearly written and forcefully argued * Big Issue * The assault on childhood in our corporate-dominated and profit-driven society, painfully dissected in this penetrating study, is a tragedy not only for the immediate victims but for hopes for a better future. It can be resisted, as Joel Bakan discusses. And it is urgent not to delay -- Noam Chomsky