Julian Assange may be a household name, but it hasn’t helped the activist and WikiLeaks founder with sales of his newest book, “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet” — which was written as an urgent warning to the public about the threat to Internet freedoms.
Ahead of the book’s release, “Cypherpunks” received plenty of publicity from public intellectuals, including Naomi Wolf, who called the book “an important wake-up call about a possible dystopian future, which is a technological reality now.” Oliver Stone also praised the book as “gripping, vital reading,” saying the book clearly explains the way in which corporate and government control of the Internet poses a fundamental threat to freedom and democracy.
Those positive reviews, however, weren’t enough for Assange to attract much more attention to his book than Snooki has done for hers.
In a review by Adam Morris in the Los Angeles Review of Books, a lack of public excitement for the book was partly blamed on its unconventional structure, wherein Assange and his co-authors engage in a sort of chaotic back-and-forth. Also blamed for the lackluster media attention for “Cypherpunks” was its uncomfortable, ominous subject matter:
“Cypherpunks would have the reader nakedly confront a truth that even a clear-eyed realist like Al Gore would find inconvenient: the dark steed on which we are ‘galloping into a new transnational dystopia’ is nothing less than our favorite toy, tool, and distraction.”
Assange’s book has been called “pessimistic” and opens with its author deeming the Internet a “threat to human civilization.” While a large majority of the public uses the Internet for daily tasks, entertainment, directions and shopping, Assange argues that governments around the world — who themselves, he writes, are controlled by multinational corporate interests — have begun taking over the Internet.
Besides the content, low sales may be tied to the fact that “Cypherpunks” was released as a copyrighted text and included the antithetical-to-Wikileaks (albeit otherwise standard) copyright, reading, “No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means.”
Aside from charges of copyright hypocrisy and general pessimism, reviews of “Cypherpunks” have applauded Assange’s efforts to alert the public to the increasing use of Internet surveillance, rules and regulations. At the end of the day, reviewers strongly encouraged that the public read the book.