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.Dark Heart: The Shocking Truth About Hidden Britain

by: Nick Davies

July 30, 1998
It will open your eyes to the hidden deprivation in this country and change your perspective on things. poverty is not the fault of the poor.
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.McMafia: Crime without Frontiers: Crime Without Frontiers

by: Misha Glenny

April 03, 2008
I bought this book after reading a serialisation in a paper, and found it a really fascinating read. Everything from prostitution to guns to drugs to cyber crime to diamonds to people trafficking is covered in a wide ranging examination of the globalised nature of the black market, and its enormous influence on society and politics.
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.Bad Science

by: Ben Goldacre

September 01, 2008
This is one of those books that you read and then imemdiately want to purchase for virtually everybody you know - the ones who will already agree, and the ones who will argue (using bad science) until they are blue in the face.
This is an amusing, informative and very interesting read that addresses some highly disturbing stories, such as the MMR media hoax, MRSA testing, "studies" involving thousands of children, the qualifications of certain "doctors" and many more besides.
At the same time as drawing our attention to these issues we also learn about scientific testing, statistics, health related matters and more, but in a way that amazingly is not patronising, not overly simplified and highly entertaining.
This is a book where you ... Read More:
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.Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History

by: Damian Thompson

July 01, 2008
If the last Diana inquest bored you to tears, or you are sick of listening to crap 9/11 conspiracies, get hold of this brilliant book now.

Conspiracy theories, along with quack medicine, fake history and bogus science, all form "Counterknowledge" - that is, `misinformation masquerading as fact.'

The problem is huge, and Thompson powerfully argues that the 21st century faces a `pandemic of credulous thinking' when, conversely, our ability to evaluate claims made about science or history is better than ever before.

With the arrival of the scientific enlightenment, ideas that no longer held their ground were banished to the fringes of society. Now, with internet communication, they have a larger following than ever ... Read More:
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.Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth

by: Christopher Booker, Richard North

November 10, 2007
As someone who studied the history of BSE in great detail I can assure you that the public 'scare' was based not on journalistic sensationalism but very hard science. The scientific evidence of the transmissibility of prion diseases across species barriers had been uniquivocally established by that time. That fact was carefully kept from the public in order to safeguard the beef industry. By whom? Senior officials responsible for public safety. Disinformation was advocated among senior officials with respect to the scientific evidence. It is amply documented. I know an organic butcher who pioneered the sale of organic meat many years ago before the supermarkets stocked it. During the BSE crisis he was visited by men in suits who gently advised him not to talk to ... Read More:
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.The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by: Naomi Klein

May 01, 2008
Even though it was valuable for me to learn what is really going on, I read this book with a mixture of revulsion and horror. And more information keeps showing up - only recently, "New Scientist" (23 July 2008) carried an article stating that, for each year of a country's involvement with the IMF, the TB death rate increased by four per cent on average. This was not because countries with worsening TB attract more IMF attention since the TB rates had been falling, or at least steady, before receiving IMF "help".


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.The Rise of Political Lying

by: Peter Oborne

April 11, 2005
Oborne completely misses that point in this book, accusing the Labour government of lying when he and everyone else knows that they are no worse than the Tories when they were in power.

What Oborne fails to admit is that the only reason politicians feel it necessary to 'manage' their pronouncements is that they know the news media will twist and stretch (spin...!) everything that is said in order to fit the agenda of the newspaper's owner and to create a 'juicier' story for the purpose of self-advertisement.

The real villains in this area are the newspapers and journalists who carry the 'sword of truth' but are instead terrible hypocrites.

Oborne is ultimately guilty of playing along with the general status quo, and this book should only be read if ... Read More:
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.Dawn of the Dumb: Dispatches from the Idiotic Frontline

by: Charlie Brooker

November 01, 2007
Brooker is currently the best-loved pop culture pundit amongst the jaded workshy internet-hogging sullen misanthrope demographic. This is an indesputable fact. He has sat aside the collective imagination of this unhappy group like a grumpy colossus since the launch of the spoof listings website TVGoHome back in what now feels like the mid-1800s, and he continues to do so with his Guardian articles and the brilliant Screenwipe show, which I'll wager most of you have seen on the Guardian website and youtube respectively rather than in actual grubby print or on actual proper telly. This all feels very word-of-mouthy and grass-rootsy, with friends slinging URLs at you every time he says something particularly interesting or rude, and part of the reason for this popularity is that, despite his grumbling ... Read More:
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.The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future

by: Larry Elliott, Dan Atkinson

June 05, 2008
In this brilliant book, Larry Elliott, the economics editor of the Guardian, and Dan Atkinson, the economics editor of the Mail on Sunday, explain why the economy is in such a mess.

Previously, strong unions, progressive taxation, managed trade and controls on capital and immigration produced higher living standards for the majority. As the authors note, "A fifth factor, immigration controls, also contributed to rising real incomes of blue-collar workers." Now the opposite policies are producing stagnant or falling incomes, massive debts, tepid growth, and soaring income inequality and economic insecurity. Workers are subjected to material losses and moral uplift. GB plc is not a decent industrial company but a dodgy hedge fund.

Elliott and Atkinson blame what they call the twelve gods ... Read More:
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.The Triumph of the Political Class

by: Peter Oborne

September 17, 2007
I want to second pretty much everything that most of the other reviewers, especially Henry Berocca in an excellent review, have said. I have a few additional points and some quibbles:

Oborne should perhaps have written more about the role of the European Union in the motivation of this class of political leaders. It is an astonishing fact, when you think about it, that this political class craves power and yet has chosen to transfer a lot of political authority to Brussels. Why is that? It would be good for Oborne to have perhaps asked more about that. I personally think that many, if not all, of the pro-EU types are careerists who hope to jump on board the gravy train, although some may idealistically believe that we should create a federal EU state and naively expect that such a state will be democratically ... Read More:
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