The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld [Paperback]

AnIndependentandNew StatesmanBook of the Year

Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit—a world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter—lies a vast and often hidden network of sites, communities, and cultures where freedom is pushed to its limits, and where people can be anyone, or do anything, they want. This is the world of Bitcoin and Silk Road, of radicalism and pornography. This is the Dark Net.

In this important and revealing book, Jamie Bartlett takes us deep into the digital underworld and presents an extraordinary look at the internet we don't know. Beginning with the rise of the internet and the conflicts and battles that defined its early years, Bartlett reports on trolls, pornographers, drug dealers, hackers, political extremists, Bitcoin programmers, and vigilantes—and puts a human face on those who have many reasons to stay anonymous.

Rich with historical research and revelatory reporting, The Dark Net is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at a world that doesn't want to be known.An NPR Best Book of 2015
Included inThe Washington Post's Notable Nonfiction of 2015

“Bartlett combines an insider’s expertise with a neophyte’s tale of discovery. Rather than measure the pros and cons of the Web, he maps its frontiers without judgment. The result is a lucid inquiry into the relationship between technology and freedom that’s also a captivating beach book.
—WASHINGTON POST

A Best Summer Books pick by Kevin Nguyen, NPR's On Point

“A welcome deep dive into the anonymous Internet.
—FLAVORWIRE, The 15 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year So Far

“One of the truly indispensable works of nonfiction released in 2015.
—Jonathon Sturgeon,FLAVORWIRE

“It is Bartlett’s plentiful and fascinating interviews with the denlãe