Paperback: You Can’t Read This Book by Nick Cohen (4th Estate, £8.99)

Apartheid, Communism and the Greek generals have gone but are we really free? This is a superb analysis, says William Leith
William Leith1 August 2013

Reading this book, which is excellent, you see how easy it is to think that we live in an age of freedom.

After all, as Cohen points out, the last several decades have seen the fall of all sorts of tyranny. Gone are the fascist dictators of Greece, Portugal, and Spain, as well as the death-squad regimes of South America, the apartheid system in South Africa, and the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. But are we really free? Cohen suggests, persuasively, that our new world might not be quite what it seems. He gives us a superb analysis of privacy, and he’s very sharp on money, religion, and the internet. Best of all, he’s a great storyteller.

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