Review
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“Comprehensive and conscientious…Wu writes with elegance
and clarity…[his] chapters about the early days of advertising
are some of this book’s most enjoyable, easily serving as a
reader’s companion to “Mad Men.” Mr. Wu concludes his book with a
cri de coeur, imploring us to regain custody of our attention,
written so rousingly that it just may make you reconsider your
priorities.”
–Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
“Compelling…sharp…Wu [is] a skilled thinker…he applies the
thesis of a business cycle to explain the development of the
advertising market and the ways in which it has adapted to avoid
our natural inclination to ignore it…Wu dramatizes this push and
pull to great effect…a “Hidden Persuaders” for the 21st century,
just as we stand squarely on the threshold of a post-broadcast
world where the algorithmic nano-targeting of electronic media
knows our desires and impulses before we know them ourselves.”
–Emily Bell, The New York Times Book Review
“A startling and sweeping examination of the increasingly
ubiquitous commercial effort to capture and commodify our
attention…We’ve become the consumers, the producers, and the
content. We are selling ourselves to ourselves.”
—Tom Vanderbilt, The New Republic
“Illuminating.”
–Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review of Books
“Lively…An engrossing study of what we hate about commercial
media…Vigorous and amusing, filled with details of colorful
hucksterism and cunning attention-grabbing ploys along with
revealing ins into the behavioral quirks they instill in
us.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“Part history and part social wake up call, this book is for
everyone.”
—Library Journal
“Forget subliminal seduction: every day, we are openly bought
and sold, as this provocative book shows.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Tim Wu has written a profoundly important book on a problem that
doesn’t get enough— well, attention. Attention itself has become
the currency of the information age, and, as Wu meticulously and
eloquently demonstrates, we allow it to be bought and sold at our
peril.”
–James Gleick, author of Time Travel: A History
“I couldn’t put this fascinating book down. Gripping from page
one with its in, vivid writing, and panoramic sweep, The
Attention Merchants is also a book of urgent importance,
revealing how our preeminent industries work to fleece our
consciousness rather than help us cultivate it.”
–Amy Chua, Yale law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the
Tiger Mother and The Triple Package
“Television entranced the masses. Digital media, more
insidiously, mesmerizes each of us individually. In this
revelatory book, Tim Wu tells the story of how advertisers and
programmers came to seize control of our eyes and minds. The
Attention Merchants deserves everyone’s attention.”
–Nicholas Carr, author of Utopia Is Creepy and The Shallows
“The question of how to get people to care about something
important to you is central to religion, government, commerce,
and the arts. For more than a century, America has experimented
with buying and selling this attention, and Wu’s history of that
experiment is nothing less than a history of the human condition
and its discontents.”
–Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
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About the Author
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TIM WU is an author, policy advocate, and professor at
Columbia University, best known for coining the term "net
neutrality." In 2006, Scientific American named him one of 50
leaders in science and technology; in 2007, 01238 magazine listed
him as one of Harvard's 100 most influential graduates; in 2013,
National Law Journal included him in "America's 100 Most
Influential Lawyers"; and in 2014 and 2015, he was named to the
"Politico 50." He formerly wrote for Slate, where he won the
Lowell Thomas Gold medal for Travel Journalism, and is a
contributing writer for The New Yorker. In 2015, he was appointed
to the Executive Staff of the Office of New York State Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman as a senior counsel and
special adviser.
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