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Extracts

Paul Mason: Governments are now controlling us through phone algorithms

A Radical Defence of the Human Being

Clear Bright Future

'Thrilling, brilliant, radical ... an admirable defence of humans against machines' Guardian 
 
A passionate defence of humanity and a work of radical optimism from the international bestselling author of Postcapitalism 
 
How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? 
 
In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defence of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. 
 
In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable - through language, innovation and co-operation - of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better?

Paul Mason is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and film-maker. Previously economics editor of Channel 4 News, his books include PostCapitalism, Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: the New Global Revolutions; Live Working Die Fighting; and Rare Earth: A Novel.

How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? 
 
In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defence of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. 
 
In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable - through language, innovation and co-operation - of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better?

A Guide to Our Future

PostCapitalism

'The most important book about our economy and society to be published in my lifetime' Irvine Welsh 
 
From Paul Mason, the award-winning Channel 4 presenter, Postcapitalism is a guide to our era of seismic economic change, and how we can build a more equal society. 
 
Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change - economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust - and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason wonders whether today we are on the brink of a change so big, so profound, that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system by which entire societies function, has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new. 
 
At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that, as Mason shows, has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership - in fact, he contends, it is already doing so. 
 
In this groundbreaking, Sunday Times top ten book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the recent financial crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable global economy.

How The Working Class Went Global

Live Working or Die Fighting

An extraordinary history of the working class and its globalisation that takes Victorian factories, trade unions, fascism and today's migrant labourers, among many other subjects, in its epic sweep.

Vividly accessible... required reading for the Seattle brigade

Mason, using an impressive range of primary sources, recounts nine of the great stories of working-class revolts

This book tells stories of our past that are indispensable to understanding the present. it is a good answer to all who ask where the working class has gone. Brilliant

'Don't die stupid. If you haven't read Mason's book, you know nothing about how this planet works... breathtaking, fascinating, perceptive... Damn, I wish I'd written this book

Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller Armed Madhouse

This is micro-historical writing at its best

Walden Bello, author of Dilemmas of Domination

Mason brings together a wealth of inspiring stories of workers' struggles of the past with accounts of workers' fights today

Paul Mason was born in 1960 in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He is BBC Newsnight's business and industry correspondent. He won the 2003 Wincott Award for business journalism and was named Workworld Broadcast Journalist of the Year in 2004 . He lives in London.

Globalisation has created a whole new working class - and they are reliving stories that were first played out a century ago. In Live Working or Die Fighting, Paul Mason tells the story of this new working class alongside the epic history of the global labour movement, from its formation in the factories of the 1800s through its near destruction by fascism in the 1930s and up to today's anti-globalisation movement. 
 
Blending exhilarating historical narrative with reportage from today's front line, he links the lives of 19th-century factory girls with the lives of teenagers in a giant Chinese mobile phone factory; he tells the story of how mass trade unions were born in London's Docklands - and how they're being reinvented by the migrant cleaners in skyscrapers that stand on the very same spot. 
 
It is a story of urban slums, self-help co-operatives, choirs and brass bands, free love and self-education by candlelight. And, as the author shows, in the developing industrial economies of the world it is still with us. Live Working or Die Fighting celebrates a common history of defiance, idealism and self-sacrifice, one as alive and active today as it was two hundred years ago. It is a unique and inspirational book.

Paul Mason

For its historical depth, analytical vigour and mobilizational potential, this book is unparalleled. How to Stop Fascism is a visceral reminder of what's at stake, and every page is an urgent invitation to resist.

Paul Mason argues for a broader anti-fascist political movement that may have felt radical ten years ago but now feels only more and more necessary. History is a reminder that we are never far from the risk of living under fascism. It can happen anywhere. Mason tells that history with passion and sincerity, framing it perfectly against the present.

Angela Saini, author of Superior: The Return of Race Science

Mason's How to Stop Fascism is massively useful ... his one-line definition of the phenomenon really seized my brain ... a good toolbox.

Mason doesn't flinch from questioning rigid orthodoxies. This is an erudite effort, of interest to anyone looking for a deep exploration of the origins of fascism or fearful that Trump, Bolsonaro or a resurgent far-right across Europe presage a return to humanity's darkest hours.

History, Ideology, Resistance

The far right is on the rise across the world. From Modi's India to Bolsonaro's Brazil, fascism is not a horror that we have left in the past; it is a recurring nightmare that is happening again - and we need to find a better way to fight it. 
 
In How to Stop Fascism, Paul Mason offers a hopeful blueprint for resisting and defeating the new far right. The book is both a chilling portrait of contemporary fascism, and a compelling history of the fascist phenomenon: its psychological roots, political theories and genocidal logic. Fascism, Mason argues, is a symptom of capitalist failure, and it has haunted us throughout the twentieth century. 
 
History shows us the conditions that breed fascism, and how it can be successfully overcome. But it is up to us to challenge it, and time is running out. In the aftermath of COVID-19, we have an opportunity to create a fairer, more equal society. To do so, we must ask ourselves: what kind of world do we want to live in? And what are we going to do about it?

Paul Mason

Praise for How to Stop Fascism

For its historical depth, analytical vigour and mobilizational potential, this book is unparalleled. How to Stop Fascism is a visceral reminder of what's at stake, and every page is an urgent invita ...

Paul Mason argues for a broader anti-fascist political movement that may have felt radical ten years ago but now feels only more and more necessary. History is a reminder that we are never far from the risk of livin ...

Mason's How to Stop Fascism is massively useful ... his one-line definition of the phenomenon really seized my brain ... a good toolbox.

For its historical depth, analytical vigour and mobilizational potential, this book is unparalleled. How to Stop Fascism is a visceral reminder of what's at stake, and every page is an urgent invita ...

Paul Mason argues for a broader anti-fascist political movement that may have felt radical ten years ago but now feels only more and more necessary. History is a reminder that we are never far from the risk of livin ...

Mason's How to Stop Fascism is massively useful ... his one-line definition of the phenomenon really seized my brain ... a good toolbox.

For its historical depth, analytical vigour and mobilizational potential, this book is unparalleled. How to Stop Fascism is a visceral reminder of what's at stake, and every page is an urgent invita ...

Paul Mason argues for a broader anti-fascist political movement that may have felt radical ten years ago but now feels only more and more necessary. History is a reminder that we are never far from the risk of livin ...

Mason's How to Stop Fascism is massively useful ... his one-line definition of the phenomenon really seized my brain ... a good toolbox.

Books by Paul Mason

Articles featuring Paul Mason

Paul Mason: Governments are now controlling us through phone algorithms

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