The Library brings you news about new printed books available on our shelves.
Everybody Lies: what the internet can tell us about who we really are (Bloomsbury, 2018) by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz explores what big data can reveal about people’s actual behaviour, desires and fears. Drawing primarily on internet search data, the author shows that people often do not tell the truth in surveys and conversations, whereas their online behaviour provides a more candid picture. He examines a range of topics, including racism, success in life, parent–child relationships, sexuality, crime, sport and economics. Through surprising, entertaining and sometimes troubling findings, he explains how big data can serve as a kind of ‘digital truth serum’. At the same time, the book emphasises that data alone are not enough – what matters is our ability to ask the right questions and interpret the results correctly.
Andrej Auersperger Matić, in his monograph Just words : the effectiveness of civil justice in European human rights jurisprudence (Cambridge University Press, 2020), examines the role of the European Court of Human Rights in promoting standards of effective civil justice in Europe. He defines judicial effectiveness as comprising three main components: the length, cost and predictability of proceedings. Based on a comprehensive review of the relevant case law, the author argues that the legal standards established by the Court in these areas are relatively modest and that the legal reasoning underpinning them is predominantly formalist. Rather than developing an understanding of the relevant policy choices that determine the institutional framework of civil justice, the Court bases its decisions on abstract concepts such as ‘reasonable time’, ‘access to court’ and ‘legal certainty’. By sidelining key institutional issues, such as resource allocation and incentives, the Court has developed a largely theoretical body of case law that, in practice, is of little value to individuals seeking to enforce their rights before the courts.
