How fake news conquered the world

A new book explores the latest revolution in political propaganda.

So much of politics today feels completely divorced from reality.

Bullshit isn’t new, but the sheer volume of it, the constant flood of misleading stories, contradictory narratives, and outright disinformation, has changed the political landscape. The information space, thanks to digital technology, seems more out of control than ever.

A new book by Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born ex-reality TV producer turned journalist and academic, claims that we’re experiencing a brand of reality-bending politics that really began in post-Soviet Russia. It’s...