I labored with 'The Snowden Files' for three months, finishing off a
Zaidi, a Ken Follett and Natwar Singh's latest book in the meanwhile.
The only worse book I have read in the recent past has been Rachel
Dwyer's incredibly boring book on how Bollywood and Indian culture is
intertwined (which read like a gassy PhD thesis by some intense cultural
'frog in a well' scientist).
Harding treats Snowden and
individual privacy as the subject of his own PhD thesis. After the
initial pacy thriller like section on how Snowden did what he did, the
book degenerates into a discussion on data privacy and how US
intelligence/ NSA did what it did (i.e. spy on the world). There are
interesting tidbits here and there including the spirited fight between a
committed journalist cadre and US/ UK intelligence to keep the Snowden
revelations in the public domain but such sections get lost between
reams of explanations of technical nuances of the spying.
I was expecting much more from the book, especially since I am very particular about checking Goodreads ratings of unknown authors before buying them. Goodreads has failed me terribly, perhaps for the first time. Hope this is not the start of a trend.
Harding treats Snowden and
individual privacy as the subject of his own PhD thesis. After the
initial pacy thriller like section on how Snowden did what he did, the
book degenerates into a discussion on data privacy and how US
intelligence/ NSA did what it did (i.e. spy on the world). There are
interesting tidbits here and there including the spirited fight between a
committed journalist cadre and US/ UK intelligence to keep the Snowden
revelations in the public domain but such sections get lost between
reams of explanations of technical nuances of the spying. I was expecting much more from the book, especially since I am very particular about checking Goodreads ratings of unknown authors before buying them. Goodreads has failed me terribly, perhaps for the first time. Hope this is not the start of a trend.
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