Age of Security

‘A forensic and furious book about the global phenomena of omni-surveillance and “Big Security” … should make for depressing reading, yet Andersson’s style is energetic, often humorous’
New Statesman
‘We are safer now than ever, in the main. So why do we feel so insecure? A brilliantly thought-provoking study not just of our shrinking tolerance for risk, but also how cynical politicians and a massive global industry encourage us to trap ourselves in cages of our own making’
Mark Galeotti, author of Homo Criminalis
‘Do we actually want to live in this state of heightened supervision? Does it matter? And who cares? Those are the questions tackled in this book about the global shift towards a security culture and the possible cost of that shift’
The Spectator
‘We live in an age in which we seek less to solve problems than to contain them … Breaking out of the container of containment, and restoring politics to its rightful place in human life, is perhaps our most urgent task’
The Observer
‘[A] sobering, even scary survey of the modern obsession with surveillance … the time has come to fight back, and reading Ruben Andersson’s book provides a starting point’
The Daily Mail
‘Andersson draws impressively on many examples from across the world to argue persuasively that we have moved into the era of ‘Big Security’, where the name of the game is protection of the status quo, invariably at the expense of the marginalised’
openDemocracy
‘A sober and passionate examination into how we’ve allowed the security narrative to infect every aspect of our lives. This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory
‘A courageous and beautifully written book that takes us to the heart of the brave new world of surveillance capitalism’
Professor Toby Green, author of A Fistful of Shells
‘Propulsive and urgent, Age of Security is a panoramic exploration of our world with a vital demand that we change it for the better’
Martha Spurrier

Ruben Andersson is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and the holder of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship on global security. His previous books include Illegality, Inc., winner of a BBC award, No Go World, and (with David Keen) Wreckonomics. He has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, and El País.

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