The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World - Hardcover

Linsey McGoey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 178032636X ISBN 13: 9781780326368

Publisher: Zed Books, 2019

Synopsis

Deliberate ignorance has been known as the ‘Ostrich Instruction’ in law courts since the 1860s. It illustrates a recurring pattern in history in which figureheads for major companies, political leaders and industry bigwigs plead ignorance to avoid culpability. So why do so many figures at the top still get away with it when disasters on their watch damage so many people’s lives? Does the idea that knowledge is power still apply in today’s post-truth world?

A bold, wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between ignorance and power in the modern age, from debates over colonial power and economic rent-seeking in the 18th and 19th centuries to the legal defences of today, The Unknowers shows that strategic ignorance has not only long been an inherent part of modern power and big business, but also that true power lies in the ability to convince others of where the boundary between ignorance and knowledge lies.

About this title

About the Author

Linsey McGoey is full Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK, where she directs the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI). She has held visiting positions at LSE and Sciences Po, and is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Study of Contemporary Solidarity, University of Vienna. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Jacobin, Fortune, Open Democracy, and the Spectator.

Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178032636X
• ISBN 13: 9781780326368
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384