2 April 2014
Julian Assange: When Google Met WikiLeaks
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 13:05:03 -0400
Subject: Release: OR Books announces a major new book with Julian Assange
(September, 2014)
From: OR Books Publicity <publicity[at]orbooks.com>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OR BOOKS ANNOUNCES A MAJOR NEW BOOK WITH JULIAN ASSANGE
BOOK IS BASED ON A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ASSANGE AND ERIC SCHMIDT, CHAIRMAN
OF GOOGLE
INCLUDES SUBSTANTIAL NEW COMMENTARY BY ASSANGE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
SILICON VALLEY AND THE US GOVERNMENT
Will publish September 2014
World rights available from OR Books
WHEN GOOGLE MET WIKILEAKS
JULIAN ASSANGE
In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: The Chairman
of Google, Eric Schmidt, together with an entourage of US State Department
alumni including a top former adviser to Hillary Clinton, arrived from America
at Ellingham Hall, the country residence in Norfolk, England where Assange
was living under house arrest.
For several hours the besieged leader of the world's most famous insurgent
publishing organization and the billionaire head of the world's largest
information empire locked horns. The two men debated the political problems
faced by human society, and the technological solutions engendered by the
global networkfrom the Arab Spring to Bitcoin. They outlined radically
opposing perspectives: For Assange, the liberating power of the Internet
is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at
one with US foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western
countries to American companies and markets. These differences embodied a
tug-of-war over the Internet's future that has only gathered force subsequently.
When Google Met WikiLeaks presents the story of Assange and Schmidt's
encounter. Both fascinating and alarming, it contains extensive, new material,
written by Assange specifically for this book, providing the best available
summary of his vision for the future of the Internet.
The book also includes an edited transcript of the conversation with Schmidt
in which Assange outlines the way WikiLeaks works and why it is so significant
for governments and corporations. What emerges is the clearest and most
sophisticated picture of the philosophy behind WikiLeaks to date.
Assange proposes a radical overhaul of the naming structure of the Internet,
one which would revolutionize the way information is accessed. By coupling
the intellectual content of a document to its online name -- doing away with
the haphazard URL system -- Assange outlines a potential future for the Internet
that would make it faster and much more difficult to censor.
In contrast, Schmidt’s contribution equates progress with the geographic
expansion of Google, supported by the US State Department. In cutting prose,
Assange denounces this world-view as "technocratic imperialism" and offers
a stringent critique of its methods, goals and effects.
These are vital counterpoints for anyone interested in where the
Internetand by extension human civilizationis heading. The difference
between the paths taken by Assange and Schmidt was illustrated subsequently
by their responses to the Snowden disclosures: while WikiLeaks aided the
whistleblower's escape, Google scrambled to manage a public relations backlash
after the revelation that it had taken money from the NSA to process spying
requests from the US government.
In June 2011, the North and South poles of the Internet came together in
the English countryside for an historic dialogue. This extraordinary book
tells the story of that unlikely encounter, and its significance for us
all.
For more information please contact Natasha Lewis, Publicity Manager,
at
natasha.lewis[at]orbooks.com.
For rights inquiries:
john.oakes[at]orbooks.com.
www.orbooks.com
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