Get Real: How to See Through the Hype, Spin and Lies of Modern Life

It's time to radically alter the way we perceive the world. It's time to get real.

It's time to radically alter the way we perceive the world. It's time to get real.

It's time to radically alter the way we perceive the world. It's time to get real. Multinational oil corporations trumpet their green credentials. Shadowy billionaires orchestrate 'grassroots' political movements. Public-spending cuts target the poor, but supposedly 'give power to the people'. To Eliane Glaser, these are all signs of the maddeningly surreal gap between appearance and reality in modern life. We are living in a looking-glass world in which reality is spun and crude vested interests are cloaked in seductive disguises. Get Real is a passionate and entertaining guide to decoding the delusions we live by. Busting the jargon and unravelling the spin, it reveals the secrets behind modern life that we were never supposed to know. 'A quite brilliant reality check. Angry, erudite and accessible. I loved it' Dame Jenni Murray

'A sharp, lively wake-up call to free ourselves from the illusions that we live by. Crystal clear, elegantly written and inspiring, it is all the more necessary to read Glaser's book at a time when we are increasingly pressured to imbibe phony ideology, phony science and phony ethics' Darian Leader 'These are big ideas, laid out with precision, grace and urgency. I couldn't put it down' Zoe Williams 'In an age when journalists have, in large numbers, moved from the bullshit-detection business to the bullshit-promulgation business, it's always welcome to come upon a book that hoists its flag proudly in the first camp. Eliane Glaser's is one such' Sam Leith, Guardian 'In a world filled with bullshit, Glaser wields a shovel like Rambo wields a machine gun' Time Out

Introduction		xi
1 Ideology's Second Life		1	(34)
2 Soft Power		35	(18)
3 Token Gestures		53	(14)
4 Electric Dreams		67	(22)
5 Smokescreens		89	(22)
6 An Office Romance		111	(14)
7 The Age of Consent		125	(22)
8 Science Fiction		147	(24)
9 Baloney		171	(18)
10 Greenwash		189	(18)
Afterword		207	(3)
Acknowledgements		210	(1)
Further Reading		211	(6)
Index		217

Eliane Glaser is a writer, radio producer, and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Her articles have appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books.