Edward Lucas

; fun 🌶 ; also ; speaks ;writes for @cepa, @thetimes, newsletters & . @cristinaOHQ. Not "Ed".

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Book Recommendations:

EL

Recommended by Edward Lucas

“Don't forget the #Circassians as May 21st looms. And if you've never heard of them, read @OliverBullough 's great book. I reviewed it here https://t.co/GiUFfatvCA Here's @paulgoble1 with the latest https://t.co/adXOvqu3ow” (from X)

This book argues for a deconstructive approach to the practice and writing of history at a moment when available forms for writing and publishing history are undergoing radical transformation. To do so, it explores the legacy and impact of deconstruction on American historical work; the current fetishization of lived experience, materialism, and the "real;" new trends in philosophy of history; and the persistence of ontological realism as the dominant mode of thought for conventional historians. Arguing that this ontological realist mode of thinking is reinforced by current analog publishing practices, Ethan Kleinberg advocates for a hauntological approach to history that follows the work of Jacques Derrida and embraces a past that is at once present and absent, available and restricted, rather than a fixed and static snapshot of a moment in time. This polysemic understanding of the past as multiple and conflicting, he maintains, is what makes the deconstructive approach to the past particularly well suited to new digital forms of historical writing and presentation.

EL

Recommended by Edward Lucas

“White writes with insight and flair about a subject that concerns everyone—or should do. Criminals, hooligans, hostile state actors and terrorists attack our computers and networks every minute of every day. Our money, security and freedom are at risk. Yet the public is still pitifully unaware of the threats we face—and what we need to do to protect ourselves at an individual, business, and government level. Crime Dot Com joins the dots, painting a well-informed, easy-to-understand, and up-to-date picture of the mounting dangers caused by our complacency, greed, and ignorance.” (from Amazon)

From Anonymous to the Dark Web, a dizzying account of hacking—past, present, and future. “Brilliantly researched and written.”—Jon Snow, Channel 4 News “A comprehensive and intelligible account of the elusive world of hacking and cybercrime over the last two decades. . . . Lively, insightful, and, often, alarming.”—Ewen MacAskill, Guardian On May 4, 2000, an email that read “kindly check the attached LOVELETTER” was sent from a computer in the Philippines. Attached was a virus, the Love Bug, and within days it had been circulated across the globe, paralyzing banks, broadcasters, and businesses in its wake, and extending as far as the UK Parliament and, reportedly, the Pentagon. The outbreak presaged a new era of online mayhem: the age of Crime Dot Com. In this book, investigative journalist Geoff White charts the astonishing development of hacking, from its conception in the United States’ hippy tech community in the 1970s, through its childhood among the ruins of the Eastern Bloc, to its coming of age as one of the most dangerous and pervasive threats to our connected world. He takes us inside the workings of real-life cybercrimes, drawing on interviews with those behind the most devastating hacks and revealing how the tactics employed by high-tech crooks to make millions are being harnessed by nation states to target voters, cripple power networks, and even prepare for cyber-war. From Anonymous to the Dark Web, Ashley Madison to election rigging, Crime Dot Com is a thrilling, dizzying, and terrifying account of hacking, past and present, what the future has in store, and how we might protect ourselves from it.

EL

Recommended by Edward Lucas

“A revolutionary work in several senses.” (from Amazon)

What would a sustainable economy look like? What would it take to live within our environmental means? Legacy answers these and other questions, setting out the key features of the sustainable economy. It explains what it would take to properly maintain different types of capital, why polluters would have to pay, why the current generation would have to fund the necessary maintenance of our natural assets, and why we would have to save to invest. The message is a tough one: we are way off course in terms of meeting these conditions and we cannot escape the consequences. This book explains what we would have to do to mend our ways. In doing so, it highlights the feebleness of current approaches to net zero and biodiversity loss as well as our great neglect of the core infrastructures, and why we are not meeting our duties to the next generation. This title is Open Access.