I really want to like this book. I am sympathetic to pirate politics, and I’m impressed with its sudden surge to power in Sweden and elsewhere. I even think many of the ideas in here are compelling and will probably come back to it despite my relatively negative review. The thing, though, is that I struggled through it, so it took me so long to read it that I probably don’t even remember enough to give it a fair review—except that that is itself kind of damning. It feels overly confident in its ideas: I don’t necessarily mind it as a conceptual framework for an organization (hence my willingness to come back to it), but its conclusions feel unmerited and unsupported by anything except some back of the napkin figures and choice anecdotes. Besides, the Pirate Party is doing worse now than it was a decade ago, and that feels damning by association. I don’t think I’m done with the book, but I am disappointed by it.

• Swarmwise
• Rick Falkvinge
• Pirate politics