The Walled Garden: Law and Privacy in Modern Society

Privacy is a relatively recent concept that has grown up alongside technology, with dangers to privacy multiplying due to modern technology, changing social mores, and evolving legal understandings. This book is timely for graduate and undergraduate students, scholars, and professionals with an interest in law and social norms.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 19 February 2024
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Privacy, in human history, is a relatively recent concept. In the Middle Ages, there was little privacy, even for kings and queens. Crowds watched a queen give birth, and the king received visitors while on the chamber pot. Technology and concepts of privacy grew up together, as both friends and enemies. For example, the late 19th century invention of the candid camera made it possible, for the first time, to take someone's picture without that person's consent. This fact was in the background of the classic article by Warren and Brandeis that launched the right of privacy. Today, we have smart phones with cameras, selfies, the Internet, surveillance cameras, and tools that can look through walls, smell through walls, and see through walls. Dangers to privacy have multiplied enormously, and we have only just begun figuring out how to handle the change. This book is timely as our basic understandings of privacy are challenged by modern technology, changing social mores, and evolving legal understandings that both reflect and reinforce underlying changes in society. It is likely to be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, scholars, and potentially other professionals with an interest in law and social norms.

Weight: 562g
Dimension: 228 x 150 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538162316