Get real

the long version

"A passionate and entertaining guide to spotting and decoding the delusions we live under. Multinational oil corporations trumpet their green credentials. Shadowy billionaires orchestrate 'grassroots' political movements. Public-spending cuts that target the poor are billed as 'giving power to the people'. Casually dressed employees play table football in airy open-plan offices, but work longer hours than ever before. These are just a few examples of the growing gap between appearance and reality in modern life. With the melting away of the conflicts between East and West and Right and Left, the old ideologies were supposedly consigned to history. But Eliane Glaser argues that they never really went away -- they just went undercover, creating a looking-glass world in which reality is spun and crude vested interests appear in seductive new disguises. A world of illusion, persuasion and coercion which aims to conceal the truth and beguile us all. It's time to radically alter the way we perceive the world, to raise a sceptical yet optimistic eyebrow. Time to get real"--Publisher's description.