James Ball

Historia. Desde el caldo primigenio hasta el caótico mundo moderno, 13 800 millones de años en los que han sucedido multitud de cosas interesantes.Hemos reunido las innovaciones más cruciales, las tendencias irreversibles y los puntos de inflexion en el devenir del mundo, para hacerlos estallar en una fiesta visual de infografias, esquemas, graficos, estadisticas, imagenes... Ya seas un fanatico de los datos, un apasionado por la ciencia o un amante del diseño, o si simplemente quieres saber que esta pasando en el planeta donde vives, te sorprenderas con esta aventura unica.¿Que fue primero? ¿El cristianismo o el budismo? ¿Los mayas o los romanos? ¿El ordenador personal o el microondas? ¿Cuanto dinero te coloca en el 1 % de ricos del mundo? ¿En que paises se bebe mas alcohol, se consumen mas drogas, cual acumula mas armas, contamina mas o esclaviza a su poblacion? Seguro que las respuestas te sorprenden, en esta historia del mundo distinta a la que conoces.

2016 marked the birth of the post-truth era. Sophistry and spin have coloured politics since the dawn of time, but two shock events - the Brexit vote and Donald Trumps elevation to US President - heralded a departure into murkier territory.From Trump denying video evidence of his own words, to the infamous Leave claims of 350 million for the NHS, politics has rarely seen so many stretching the truth with such impunity.Bullshit gets you noticed. Bullshit makes you rich. Bullshit can even pave your way to the Oval Office.This is bigger than fake news and bigger than social media. Its about the slow rise of a political, media and online infrastructure that has devalued truth.This is the story of bullshit: whats being spread, whos spreading it, why it works - and what we can do to tackle it.

A fascinating exposé of the world behind your screen Timely often disturbing and so important Caroline Criado Perez author of Invisible Women Takes us beyond Zuckerberg Bezos et al to a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it Fascinating engaging and important Observer Could not be more timely SpectatorThe internet is a network of physical cables and connections a web of wires enmeshing the world linking huge data centres to one another and eventually to us All are owned by someone financed by someone regulated by someone We refer to the internet as abstract from reality By doing so we obscure where the real power lies In this powerful and necessary book James Ball sets out on a global journey into the inner workings of the system From the computer scientists to the cable guys the billionaire investors to the ad men the intelligence agencies to the regulators these are the real life figures powering the internet and pulling the strings of our society Ball brilliantly shows how an invention once hailed as a democratising force has concentrated power in places it already existed that the system in other words remains the same as it did before

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist James Ball takes us into the depths of the internet to trace the origins and rapid ascent of QAnon, the movement that mutated from a niche online conspiracy theory into the worlds first digital pandemic. Imagine a deadly pathogen that, once created, could infect any person in any part of the globe within seconds. No need to wait for travellers, trains, or air traffic to spread it, all you need is an internet connection.In this gripping investigation, Pulitzer Prize winner James Ball decodes the cryptic language of the online right and with a surgeons precision tracks the spread of QAnon, the worlds first digital pandemic. QAnon began as an internet community dedicated to supporting President Trump and intent on outing a global cabal of human traffickers. A short, cryptic message posted by an anonymous user to a niche internet forum in 2017 was the spark that ignited a global movement.What started as a macabre game of virtual make-believe quickly spiralled into the spread of virulently hateful, dangerous messaging which turned into tragic, violent actions. Incoherent, chaotic, free from agendas: QAnon is a one-size-fits all cult conspiracy. From a standoff at the Hoover Dam, to the storming of the U.S.Capitol on 6 January 2021, to protesting COVID-19 lockdowns, this digital pandemic has spread globally and shows no signs of stopping. In The Other Pandemic Ball takes us into the niche pathways through which these digital pathogens spread, mutate and infect people all across the globe but he also argues that the prognosis doesnt have to be dire. He shows us that it is possible to treat and cure this virus in order to build up our digital immune systems, and be better prepared to survive the next wave.

Britain is run by bluffers. At the top of our government, our media and the civil service sit men its usually men whose core skills are talking fast, writing well and endeavouring to imbue the purest wind with substance. They know a little bit about everything, and an awful lot about nothing.We live in a country where George Osborne can become a newspaper editor despite having no experience in journalism, squeezing it in alongside five other jobs; where a newspaper columnist can go from calling a foreign head of state a wanker to being Foreign Secretary in six months; where the minister who holds on to his job for eighteen months has more expertise than the supposedly permanent senior civil servants.The UK establishment has signed up to the cult of winging it, of pretending to hold all the aces when you actually hold a pair of twos. It prizes transferable skills, rewarding the general over the specific and yet across the country we struggle to hire doctors, engineers, coders and more.Written by two self-confessed bluffers, this incisive book chronicles how the UK became hooked on bluffing and why we have to stop it.