the Future of Change

The Private Is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism comes out in early January 2025. Here is an excerpt from the recently released Kirkus review, which it calls a “farsighted book that portrays the devastating consequences of unfettered surveillance capitalism”:

Brescia explores in depth the different ways that “laws, norms, constitutional protections, and practices” surrounding political privacy “essentially provide immunity to those companies that have access to our digital selves [and] creates a form of moral hazard in which those same companies are largely free from oversight and responsibility.” But he does believe there’s hope if we follow the patterns of past successful civil rights movements, where there was a gradual convergence of understanding—coming from disparate groups of legislators, lawyers, academics, activists, and industry tycoons—that for democracy to thrive, it must protect and never again “extract” the teeming private selves at the heart of it.

Read the whole review here. And please consider pre-ordering on Amazon now here!