A crisp, highly informative introduction to what ails the information industry and what can be done about it. Ball's analysis is thorough and courageously even-handed (Praise for 'Post-Truth' The Times)A vivid analysis of how the business models and incentives currently prevailing in digital media render decent discourse all but inaudible (Kazuo Ishiguro, Praise for 'Post-Truth' Guardian, Summer Reads)

The internet is a network of physical cables and connections, a web of wires enmeshing the world, connecting 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.

Who built, funds and governs the internet? An investigative journey into the inner workings of the System, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. The internet is a network of physical cables and connections, a web of wires enmeshing the world, connecting 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.

James Ball is the Global Editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the author of multiple books, including Post-Truth. He has worked for BuzzFeed, the Guardian and the Washington Post and his reporting projects have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Scripps Howard Prize and the British Journalism Award for investigative reporting, among others.