Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It - Hardcover

Stengel, Richard

3.79

555 ratings by Goodreads

9781611856385: Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611856388 ISBN 13: 9781611856385

Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2019

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During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time magazine and an Under Secretary of State, was on the front lines of the new global information war. At the time, he was the single person in government tasked with unpacking, disproving and combating both ISIS's messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, in 2016, as the presidential election unfolded, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself, weaponizing the grievances of Americans who felt overlooked. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three players had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again; Putin tried to make Russia great again; and we all know about Trump.

In a narrative that is by turns dramatic and eye-opening, Information Wars walks readers through of this often frustrating battle. Stengel moves through Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and introduces characters from Putin to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mohamed bin Salman to show how disinformation is impacting our global society. He illustrates how ISIS terrorized the world using social media, and how the Russians launched a tsunami of disinformation around the annexation of Crimea - a scheme that became the model for their interference with the 2016 presidential election. An urgent book for our times, Information Wars stresses that we must find a way to combat this ever growing threat to democracy.

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Review:

A gripping insider account of the U.S. government's struggle to understand and fight back against a new generation of online threats from extremist messaging and Russian disinformation. As a celebrated journalist who moved into the frontlines of this fight, Richard Stengel sheds new light on how bad actors leverage technology to undermine trust, and helps us better understand what must be done to protect our democracy. -- Madeleine K. Albright

Information Wars ought to be a wake-up call. The message is that open, democratic societies are in retreat. There's only one force powerful enough to save the day (one too little mentioned these days), and that's the readers and viewers who consume information. -- David Ignatius, Washington Post

With colorful behind-the-scenes stories and razor-sharp insights, Stengel provides the first insider report from the front lines of the disinformation wars waged by Russia and ISIS. At the heart of the struggle was the way the internet allowed people to weaponize grievances, as Donald Trump did in his campaign. Countering this trend is the most crucial challenge for our democracy and free society. Stengel shows how we've failed and what we can do in the future -- Walter Isaacson

With the eye of a historian and the passion of a man in the arena, Richard Stengel has given us a compelling and illuminating memoir of his time at the highest levels in the fight against disinformation and for American values. Richly observed and thoughtfully rendered, Stengel's book is essential reading. -- Jon Meacham, author of THE SOUL OF AMERICA

There is no man I admire more than Nelson Mandela. Rick Sten�gel's wise and moving book captures the Nelson Mandela I have been privileged to know. But reading Mandela's Way gave me new insights and inspiration. -- President Bill Clinton on MANDELA'S WAY

Mandela's Way is an electrically exciting, direct and vivid way of making greatness tangible, human and complex. Richard Stengel has honed all the elegance and lucidity of thirty years of brilliant cultural and political writing into a book to illuminate, to inspire-and to endure. -- Pico Iyer on MANDELA'S WAY

Book Description:

The first and only insider account exploring how the US tried - and failed - to combat the global rise of disinformation that eventually spilled into the 2016 election.

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