Williams Collins buys Oxford academic Ruben Andersson's first trade book

Williams Collins has acquired the “gripping story of how the hunger for security took over our politics” by Oxford University social anthropologist Ruben Andersson. 

Commissioning editor Eva Hodgkin pre-empted world all languages rights to the book, which has the current title of Age of Security, from Matt Turner at RCW. Publication is set for spring 2027. 

The blurb reads: “Reporting from the frontlines of a paranoid world, Andersson tracks the rise of the security industry from the 1990s onwards, from gangland crime in suburban Sweden to Russian mercenary groups and the military junta in Mali. For Andersson, our obsession with security is an act of political retreat, and a futile one, for politics can’t be locked away – it’s only in a shared society that real security is found.”  

Hodgkin said: “It’s a comforting yet dangerous fantasy to believe that we can secure our way to freedom from behind our own walls. I was so energised reading Ruben’s vital challenge to this ‘threat mindset’, which has become a standard and accepted part of our daily lives, and his vision for a world made safe by true social security.  

“His on-the-ground reporting, in multiple languages, combined with vivid narratives of the individual lives caught in security’s nets, make for compulsive reading. The book stakes a bold claim to a different kind of world, and I can’t wait to publish it.” 

Andersson commented: “From chaotic border operations to brutal wars and a mass-surveillance arms race, security is increasingly defining our politics. We urgently need to understand how security is entrapping us and how we can start to break free. This is what Age of Security will set out to do, and I’m delighted it has found an ideal home at William Collins.” 

Andersson is professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford and the holder of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship on global security. He has written for the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times and El País among others and won a BBC award. This is his first book for a trade publisher.