Eavesdropping An Intimate History
Eavesdropping: An Intimate History by John L. Locke, published by OUP Oxford on June 24, 2010, offers a thorough exploration of the phenomenon of eavesdropping. This 266-page book delves into the historical and cultural aspects of eavesdropping, examining its presence from sixteenth-century voyeurism to contemporary social media practices. Locke investigates the biological motivations behind this behavior and its implications across various contexts, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of how eavesdropping shapes human interactions.
In this engaging account, readers will find discussions that span a wide range of topics, including communication studies, privacy, and the social sciences. Locke highlights both the positive and negative aspects of eavesdropping, illustrating how it can serve as a tool for understanding others while also acknowledging its potential for misuse. The book draws connections between eavesdropping in nature and human society, making it relevant to those interested in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cultural anthropology. Through this insightful examination, Locke invites readers to reflect on the complexities of listening in on others and the consequences it carries in our lives.
Official synopsis Publisher
Who among us hasn’t eavesdropped on a stranger’s conversation in a theater or restaurant? Indeed, scientists have found that even animals eavesdrop on the calls and cries of others. In Eavesdropping, John L. Locke provides the first serious look at this virtually universal phenomenon. Locke’s entertaining and disturbing account explores everything from sixteenth-century voyeurism to Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”; from chimpanzee behavior to Parisian café society; from private eyes to Facebook and Twitter. He uncovers the biological drive behind the behavior and highlights its consequences across history and cultures. Eavesdropping can be a good thing–an attempt to understand what goes on in the lives of others so as to know better how to live one’s own. Even birds who listen in on the calls of distant animals tend to survive longer. But Locke also concedes that eavesdropping has a bad name. It can encompass cheating to get unfair advantage, espionage to uncover secrets, and secretly monitoring emails to maintain power over employees. In the age of CCTV, phone tapping, and computer hacking, this is eye-opening reading.
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