THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year Award 2019
'Easily the most important book to be published this century. I find it hard to take any young
activist seriously who hasn't at least familarised themselves with Zuboff's central ideas.' -
Zadie Smith The GuardianThe 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 us.The heady optimism of the
Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened
inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell it to
the highest bidder whether government or retailer. Profits now depend not only on predicting
our behaviour but modifying it too. How will this fusion of capitalism and the digital shape
our values and define our future?Shoshana Zuboff shows that we are at a crossroads. We still
have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in and what we decide now will
shape the rest of the century. Our choices: allow technology to enrich the few and impoverish
the many or harness it and distribute its benefits. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a
deeply-reasoned examination of the threat of unprecedented power free from democratic
oversight. As it explores this new capitalism's impact on society politics business and
technology it exposes the struggles that will decide both the next chapter of capitalism and
the meaning of information civilization. Most critically it shows how we can protect ourselves
and our communities and ensure we are the masters of the digital rather than its slaves.
