Archives par étiquette : Javelin

THE INFORMATION STATE de Jacob Siegel

We’re constantly told that disinformation is everywhere and that it’s ruining our democracy. But what if the war on disinformation itself is really just a weapon to squash any and all legitimate dissent?

THE INFORMATION STATE:
Politics in the Age of Total Control
by Jacob Siegel
Henry Holt, March 2026
(via Javelin)

THE INFORMATION STATE is an incisive examination of how we reached the point where anything that contradicts the dominant narrative can be labeled dangerous disinformation. Tablet writer Jacob Siegel charts how a technological infrastructure built to make society more rational and progressive has steadily replaced democratic freedoms with systems of digital control. Instead of competing for voters’ support, the Information State uses censorship, mass surveillance, and algorithmic manipulation to shape public perceptions as it tries to engineer reality.

An alliance between government and tech companies formed to wage the war on terror has evolved into an unholy new kind of technocratic state and turned against America’s own citizens. In short, the information war came home and completely overtook American politics during the hyperpolarization of the Trump era and the isolation of the Covid pandemic. THE INFORMATION STATE is an urgent, necessary book that sounds the alarm on where society is headed in the age of AI if we don’t relearn how to think for ourselves and ask searching questions about whether information can ever be a substitute for truth.

Jacob Siegel is a contributing editor at Tablet. He is a US Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He edited and contributed to Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War, the first anthology of fiction by veterans of the global war on terror. Since 2013, he has worked as a journalist and essayist covering war, digital technology, and the convulsions in the American scene.

THE INVISIBLE LIST de Ravi Gupta

A manifesto in defense of turning your hobbies into passions and becoming a lifelong learner along the way.

THE INVISIBLE LIST
by Ravi Gupta
Harmony/PRH, publication date TBD
(via Javelin)

Ravi offers readers a battle-tested formula for how to reclaim your time, follow your dreams, and remake yourself as a lifelong learner by pursuing a different goal from your bucket list of deferred passions each and every year.

Packed with concrete, actionable advice for how you can master one passion a year, from whittling down your choices, to the habits necessary for success, to dealing with the constraints that life throws your way, to crossing the finish line, THE INVISIBLE LIST is a winning formula that teaches you how to master new skills and reshape your own sense of what you can achieve. It’s Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks, meets Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, with a dash of Atomic Habits thrown in.

Ravi Gupta is a serial social entrepreneur dedicated to reforming civic institutions. He is the cofounder and CEO of The Branch, a media company committed to combating online polarization. In addition, Ravi serves as the CEO and founder of Squadra Health, a company focused on longevity and wellness. Before these ventures, he cofounded Arena, where he led efforts that helped elect dozens of candidates and launched one of the largest campaign-staffer training academies in political history. Earlier in his career, Ravi founded and served as CEO of RePublic Schools, a network of charter schools in the South, and established Reimagine Prep, Mississippi’s first charter school. He also played key roles in Obama’s first campaign and first term, serving as an assistant to Chief Strategist David Axelrod and Ambassador Susan Rice. A native of Staten Island, Ravi graduated from Yale Law School and Binghamton University. He’s won numerous awards, including the Truman Scholarship, the Webby Award, and Binghamton’s University Medal, along with recognition in Forbes’s “30 Under 30” and Crain’s “NYC 40 Under 40.”

WHEN THE STONES SPEAK de Doron Spielman

This is the untold story of the rediscovery of the ancient City of David in Jerusalem and the powerful evidence that proves the Jewish people’s historical and indigenous connection to the Holy Land.

WHEN THE STONES SPEAK:
The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You To Know
by Doron Spielman
Center Street, May 2025
(via Javelin)

Since the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people have faced nine wars against multiple enemies. Yet, beyond the physical conflicts, a deeper ideological battle has been waged against Israel and the Jewish people. This war, crafted by certain Arab leaders and echoed by international organizations like the United Nations, seeks to erase the Jewish people’s ancestral ties to the land, casting them as outsiders, imposters, and “settlers.”

One thing, however, stands in the way of the denialists: the 3,800-year history of the City of David, a site lying just south of the Old City. Archeologists at the site are unearthing evidence that proves the Jewish people’s origin story in the land for over three millennia. Every shovel of dirt reveals that while others may claim to be indigenous to Jerusalem, the Jewish people are, in fact, more indigenous to the Land of Israel than perhaps any other group living anywhere in the world.

This is the timely story of those who transformed City of David from a neglected hilltop village into one of the most important archeological heritage sites in the world, while facing powerful global institutions and terror groups that would do almost anything to keep this truth hidden. Highly relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book foreshadows the events and historical denialism that unfolded with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Born and educated in the United States, Doron Spielman moved to Israel in 2000, where he serves as an international spokesperson in the Israel Defense Forces Reserves with the rank of Major. For over two decades, he has worked to transform the City of David into one of the world’s most significant archaeological and historical sites. He is a graduate of the Churchill National Security Program, a Senior Fellow at the Herut Center in Jerusalem, and a graduate of the University of Michigan.

CODE NAME BLUE WREN de Jim Popkin

A fantastic spy story with all the intrigue of a Le Carre novel, about Ana Montes, a Cuban spy within the US intelligence community who was trying to stay one step ahead of her sister, also a government official. One of the greatest spy stories you’ve never heard.

CODE NAME BLUE WREN:
The True Story of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy
by Jim Popkin
Hanover Square Press, early 2023
(via Javelin)

In the aftermath of 9/11, Ana Montes was arrested by federal authorities after 17 years of feeding American secrets to the Cuban government.
The Cubans made a habit out of selling US intel to the highest bidders – Russia, Venezuela, Iran – and Ana Montes was a generous supplier of some of our nation’s biggest secrets. Her offenses were so grave she is called the most dangerous female spy in American history, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted her executed. The hunt for this dangerous spy – an operation codenamed BLUE WREN – has been an obsession for journalist Jim Popkin, who has written about this case in publications such as the Washington Post. He has unprecedented access to key characters in this story, including Ana’s sister, Lucy, who worked for the FBI. Lucy’s job: identifying Cuban spies.
This is a story about ideology, about betrayal, about the supersecret world of espionage (which the Cubans have mastered), and about two sisters who chose two very different paths.

Popkin’s cover story for the Washington Post Magazine, “The Queen of Cuba,” was selected as a “Page-Turner” by the New Yorker and named one of the “Great Post Reads” by the Washington Post.
A dramatic adaptation is already in the works.

Jim Popkin is a writer whose investigative articles and reports have appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Slate, The Guardian, Washingtonian and on National Public Radio.

COLLECTIVE ILLUSIONS de Todd Rose

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience, behavioral economic, and social psychology research, acclaimed author, former Harvard professor, and think tank founder Todd Rose reveals how so much of our thinking about each other is informed by false assumptions that drive bad decisions that make us dangerously mistrustful as a society and hopelessly unhappy as individuals.

COLLECTIVE ILLUSIONS:
Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions
by Todd Rose
Hachette Go, February 2022
(via Javelin)

The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful, least understood forces in a society. Todd Rose believes that as human beings we continually act against our own best interests out of our brains’ misunderstanding of what we think others believe.  A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. From toilet paper shortages to kidneys that get thrown away rather than used for desperately needed organ transplants, from racial segregation to the perceived “electability” of women for political office, from bottled water to “cancel culture,” we routinely copy others, lie about what we believe, cling to tribes, and silence others. We are so profoundly social that when we are incongruent with the group that we do lasting damage to our self-worth, diminish our well-being and never realize our full potential. It’s why we all too often chase the familiar trappings of money, fame, and success that leave us feeling empty even when we do achieve them. It’s why we’ll blindly espouse a viewpoint we don’t necessarily believe in so that we blend in with the group. We trap ourselves in prisons of our own making that prevent us from living the happy, fulfilled lives we envision. The question is, Why do we keep believing the lies and hurting ourselves? Todd Rose reveals the answer is deeply hard-wired in our DNA, with brains that are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than true to who we are.
Using originally researched data, COLLECTIVE ILLUSIONS shows us where we get things wrong and just as important, how we can be authentic in forming our opinions while valuing truth. Rose offers a counterintuitive, empowering, and hopeful explanation for how we can bridge the inference gap, make decisions with a newfound clarity, and achieve fulfillment. Only then can we transform ourselves, and ultimately, society.

Social scientist Dr. Todd Rose is the co-founder of Populace, a think tank dedicated to building a world where all people have the chance to live fulfilling lives in a thriving society. He is also a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality and previously directed the Mind, Brain, and Education program. He is the author of Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment and The End of Average: Unlocking Our Potential by Embracing What Makes Us Different.