How insurgencies--enabled by digital devices and a vast information
sphere--have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it
coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of
power between the public and the elites who manage the great
hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political
parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how
insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere,
have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now
available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of
Donald Trump's improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral
triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward,
pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation
of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted
to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.