Tug of War: Surveillance Capitalism, Military Contracting, and the Rise of the Security State (Volume 242) (Carleton Library Series)
Author: Jocelyn Wills (Author)
Publisher finelybook 出版社: McGill-Queen’s University Press
Edition 版本: 1st edition
Publication Date 出版日期: 2017-09-4
Language 语言: English
Print Length 页数: 518 pages
ISBN-10: 077355047X
ISBN-13: 9780773550476
Book Description
Selling Earth observation satellites on their abilities to predict and limit adverse environmental change, politicians, business leaders, the media, and technology enthusiasts have spent sixty years arguing that space exploration can create a more peaceful, prosperous world. Capitalist states have also socialized the risk and privatized the profits of the commercial space industry by convincing taxpayers to fund surveillance technologies as necessary components of sovereignty, freedom, and democracy. Jocelyn Wills’s Tug of War reminds us that colonizing the cosmos has not only accelerated the arms race but also encouraged government contractors to compete for the military and commercial spoils of surveillance. Although Canadians prefer to celebrate their role as purveyors of peaceful space applications, Canada has played a pivotal part in the expansion of neoliberal policies and surveillance networks that now encircle the globe, primarily as a political ally of the United States and component supplier for its military-industrial complex. Tracing the forty-five-year history of Canada’s largest space company – MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) – through the lens of surveillance studies and a trove of oral history transcripts, government documents, trade journals, and other sources, Wills places capitalism’s imperial ambitions squarely at the centre of Canada-US relations and the privatization of the Canadian political economy. Tug of War confronts the mythic lure of technological progress and the ways in which those who profess little interest in war rationalize their leap into military contracting by avoiding the moral and political implications of their work.
Review
“A timely, compelling (and untold) story of the making of one of the world’s most successful global communications and information companies.” Matthew J. Bellamy, Carleton University and author of Profiting the Crown: Canada’s Polymer Corporation, 1942–19
“Surveillance. Advanced technologies. National security. Multinational capitalism. Tug of War deftly probes and integrates these vexed themes. Through deep research, masterfully contextualized, Wills tracks Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (now MDA), a global giant in satellite communications, to show how patriotism and technological enthusiasm gave way to financial ambitions, lured by markets for military and surveillance technologies. A powerful book.” Pamela Walker Laird, University of Colorado Denver, and author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing and Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin
Book Description
Lifting the veil on a corporate world girded by powerful forces at the nexus of state, capital, and geopolitical power games.
About the Author
Jocelyn Wills is professor of history at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
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