Julie Peters

Julie Peters teaches English and comparative literature at Columbia University.

A Glorious Thing: Piracy

Julie Peters, 4 November 2010

Bruce Sterling’s 1998 political thriller, Distraction, is set in the year 2044, and roving bands of land-based pirates have taken over the American hinterlands, swamps and roadways, armed with smoke bombs, high-frequency magnets (for scrambling computers) and superglue. The army is bankrupt, and the police force is disabled by corruption and general ineptitude. So – much like the...

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