Linsey McGoey is full Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK, where she directs the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI). She has held visiting positions at LSE and Sciences Po, and is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Study of Contemporary Solidarity, University of Vienna. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Jacobin, Fortune, Open Democracy, and the Spectator.

• Introduction: The Power to Ignore1. Narrow History2. Seeing Ignorance Differently3. Elite Agnotologists4. The Murdoch Strategy5. Suspicious Attention6. Know-it-all Epistocrats 7. Conflict Blindness 8. Masters of Industry, Masters of ignorance 9. The Ostrich Instruction10. Good Experts11. The Pretense of IgnoranceConclusion: The Great Enlargement

Ours is an era where truth-telling, leadership and authority have an increasingly feeble relationship. Linsey McGoey picks apart how strategic ignorance is a dastardly ploy that enables society’s elites to avoid responsibility for their rampant pursuit of self-interest. Essential if we are to resist what is one of the most dangerous tendencies of the new normal in global politics.

Linsey McGoey is full Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK, where she directs the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI). She has held visiting positions at LSE and Sciences Po, and is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Study of Contemporary Solidarity, University of Vienna. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Jacobin, Fortune, Open Democracy, and the Spectator.

• Introduction: The Power to Ignore1. Narrow History2. Seeing Ignorance Differently3. Elite Agnotologists4. The Murdoch Strategy5. Suspicious Attention6. Know-it-all Epistocrats 7. Conflict Blindness 8. Masters of Industry, Masters of ignorance 9. The Ostrich Instruction10. Good Experts11. The Pretense of IgnoranceConclusion: The Great Enlargement

Ours is an era where truth-telling, leadership and authority have an increasingly feeble relationship. Linsey McGoey picks apart how strategic ignorance is a dastardly ploy that enables society’s elites to avoid responsibility for their rampant pursuit of self-interest. Essential if we are to resist what is one of the most dangerous tendencies of the new normal in global politics.

Linsey McGoey is full Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK, where she directs the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI). She has held visiting positions at LSE and Sciences Po, and is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Study of Contemporary Solidarity, University of Vienna. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Jacobin, Fortune, Open Democracy, and the Spectator.

• Introduction: The Power to Ignore1. Narrow History2. Seeing Ignorance Differently3. Elite Agnotologists4. The Murdoch Strategy5. Suspicious Attention6. Know-it-all Epistocrats 7. Conflict Blindness 8. Masters of Industry, Masters of ignorance 9. The Ostrich Instruction10. Good Experts11. The Pretense of IgnoranceConclusion: The Great Enlargement

Ours is an era where truth-telling, leadership and authority have an increasingly feeble relationship. Linsey McGoey picks apart how strategic ignorance is a dastardly ploy that enables society’s elites to avoid responsibility for their rampant pursuit of self-interest. Essential if we are to resist what is one of the most dangerous tendencies of the new normal in global politics.