Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World

In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. The authors show how, in the course of a decade, this original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them.

Jack Goldsmith is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author most recently of The Limits of International Law. He was formerly Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice, and special counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Tim Wu is Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and previously worked in the Internet telecommunications industry in Silicon Valley.