The book feels like a writer working within his limits and not breaking any new ground, believes KEN COCKBURN
The downside of data
A book on the 'metric society' details the use of statistics and digital information for malign political, social and economic ends, says ANDY HEDGECOCK
The Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social
by Steffen Mau
(Polity, £15.99)
FICTIONAL dystopias often feature characters suffering direct persecution at the hands of clearly identified oppressors — think The Trial, Brave New World and The Truman Show.
But Steffen Mau’s The Metric Society focuses on the growing trend for self-monitoring and ways in which we collude in our own subjugation.
Similar stories
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK relishes a collection of cartoons that focus on Palestine from the period 1917 to 1948
Two new releases from Burkina Faso and Niger, one from French-based Afro Latin The Bongo Hop, and rare Mexican bootlegs



