John Murray, £8.99
The Blind Giant, By Nick Harkaway
Boyd Tonkin
Boyd Tonkin is Literary Editor at The Independent. An award-winning journalist, he was formerly Social Policy Editor of the New Statesman and has broadcast extensively for BBC arts and current affairs programmes. He has judged the Booker Prize, the Whitbread biography award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature.
Saturday 12 January 2013
Single-minded militants and diehard foes alike often shout the loudest about revolutions. Those extreme reactions make this balanced, humane and well-informed account of "how to survive in the digital age" even more valuable.
Harkaway is a qualified optimist on new technology and social media, although he points to potential abuse by states and corporations.
Get a discount on this book at the Independent online bookshop
Above all, at this "High Baroque" moment of digital culture, he calls for a humanistic response to change that puts people not machines in charge.
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