The debut of a well-known and respected New York Times journalist: Noam Cohen has appeared on Talk of the Nation, MSNBC, and numerous commercial and public radio stations in conjunction with his work on technology for the New York Times. He appeared in the documentary "Page One." Former New York Times columnist: Cohen covered technology for the New York Times from 2007 to 2015 and continues to contribute op-ed pieces to its opinion pages. Relevant to post-election conversations: The election of Donald Trump was the occasion for Noam Cohen to write an op-ed essay in the New York Times where he excoriated the role Silicon Valley played. Cohen will continue to monitor the disruptive political, intellectual and cultural role the Valley plays when this book is published. Blurbs/endorsements: We will be pursuing the likes of Tim Wu, Cathy O'Neil, Kara Swisher, Steven Levy, and Cory Doctorow for blurbs.

The world’s tech giants are at the centre of controversies over fake news, free speech and hate speech on platforms where influence is bought and sold. Yet, at the outset, almost everyone thought the internet would be a positive, democratic force, a space where knowledge could be freely shared to enable everyone to make better-informed decisions. How did it all go so wrong?

Noam Cohen reports on the tech libertarians of Silicon Valley, from the self-proclaimed geniuses Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and Mark Zuckerberg to the early pioneers at Stanford University, who have not only made the internet what it is today but reshaped society in the process. It is the story of how the greed, bias and prejudice of one neighbourhood is fracturing the Western world.