Julian Assange In His Own Words

by Julian Assange, Karen Sharpe (Compiler), Charles Glass (Preface by)

Overview

The WikiLeaks publisher and free speech campaigner Julian Assange has, since April 2019, been remanded at a maximum security prison in London facing extradition to the United States over WikiLeaks’ groundbreaking 2010 publications. Now, in this crisp anthology, Assange’s voice emerges – erudite, analytic and prophetic.

Julian Assange In His Own Words provides a highly accessible survey of Assange’s philosophy and politics, conveying his views on how governments, corporations, intelligence agencies and the media function. As well as addressing the significance of the vast trove of leaked documents published by WikiLeaks, Assange draws on a polymathic intelligence to range freely over quantum physics, Greek mythology, macroeconomics, modern literature, and empires old and new.

Drawing on his insights as the world’s most famous free speech activist Assange invites us to ask further questions about how power operates in a world increasingly dominated by a ubiquitous internet.

Assange may be gagged, but in these pages his words run free, providing both an exhortation to fight for a better world and an inspiration when doing so.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682192634
Publisher:	OR Books
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Julian Assange is the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks and the author of When Google Met WikiLeaks (OR Books, 2014) and Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet (OR Books, 2012). Julian has won many awards for his journalism including the Amnesty International UK Media Award, Economist Award, Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, Sydney Peace Foundation Prize, Walkley Award and many more. Articles by Julian Assange have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and the Guardian. Nominated for the Nobel peace prize on numerous occasions his work as a journalist and publisher, and as a campaigner for freedom of expression, has been recognized at the highest level. Julian is currently facing a 175 year sentence if extradited to the US for his work as a publisher.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Acknowledgments 5

Introduction 7

1 Accountability 31

2 Activism 39

3 Censorship 57

4 Empire 69

5 Internet 77

6 Journalism 89

7 Justice 101

8 Power 115

9 Prison 123

10 Society 131

11 Surveillance 141

12 War 147

13 Wikileaks 155

Editorial Reviews

Of all the publications about Julian Assange, this — in his own words — stands out as eloquent and powerful. It's Julian speaking.” — John Pilger

“[An] indispensable collection” — The Prisma

“The West has political prisoners” — New York Journal of Books

“The freedom fighter for all of us” — Al-Akhbar

“Should become an essential tool in the campaign for Assange’s life” — Morning Star

“Presents a world of sober analysis and penetrating insights” — WISE Up Action

From the Publisher

2021-08-18
A collection of thoughts from the self-styled champion of free expression.

Clinton or Trump? Says Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London at the time, “Well, you’re asking me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea?” It’s a characteristically inapt comparison. The reason Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the first place was to escape extradition to Sweden to face charges of rape (later dropped), which makes his musings on “the ideal man” a touch suspect: “It’s someone who has the courage of their convictions, who doesn’t bow to pressure, who doesn’t exploit people who are weaker than they are, who acts in an honourable way.” Volume editor Sharpe lauds Assange for his courage in performing such acts as dumping documents via WikiLeaks concerning the Clinton campaign just before the 2016 election. (To be sure, many readers will ask, why not the Trump campaign?) Risibly, Sharpe also likens Assange to British poet Wilfred Owen, who died in World War I after having decried “the old lie” that it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country. If hiding behind closed curtains is comparable, she may have a point; otherwise, not. Assange’s defense of WikiLeaks, which specializes in publishing government and corporate documents, as the “rebel library of Alexandria” seems off, too, unless Alexandria has been transported to Moscow. (Why no data dumps of Russian secrets? Curious minds want to know.) “Truth, ultimately, is all we have,” Assange pronounces, seemingly not pausing to consider whether his truth is not a partial thing. But then, even as he prides himself on being a courageous journalist, he lauds partiality in another strange comparison: “To be completely impartial is to be an idiot. This would mean that we would have to treat the dust in the street the same as the lives of people who have been killed.”

Pompous and self-lauding: a book for true believers only.

Kirkus Reviews