Age of Security

'This is not normal. It can be resisted. Find out how’ ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN

'Brilliantly thought-provoking' MARK GALEOTTI

What would you give up to feel safe?

The security industry has captured our politics and our private lives. From rogue states to smart doorbells, someone is always keeping a watchful eye – and we’re paying a heavy price. Anthropologist Ruben Andersson shows how Big Security rose to power, generating unprecedented profits while failing to protect us. In this page-turning dispatch from security’s frontlines – across the divides separating political right and left and global rich and poor – he pursues police chiefs in Swedish suburbs, shelters with migrants in Mexico, bunkers down with peacekeepers in Mali and mingles with arms dealers in Paris.

Everywhere, he finds that our shared obsession with security is an act of retreat: high walls, constant surveillance and punitive policies offer the illusion of control while fuelling paranoia and precarity. Every tracking app installed, border fortified, or emergency law passed makes us more fearful and less free. Our age of security is a dystopian response to political failure – but it’s not too late to replace runaway security with a humanist vision where fear no longer controls us.

Privacy, freedom, democratic control – we have already given up so much in the name of safety. But once we see how security has trapped us, we can start to break free.

'Propulsive and urgent … a panoramic exploration of our world' MARTHA SPURRIER

About the Author

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 Pais.