William Mahan’s Hackers as Heroes signals an exciting development in German media studies--a deeply researched, well written, and delightfully incisive engagement with technology, its expert if ethically challenged practitioners, and how they have been depicted in German film and television. This is a timely intervention and fascinating read on an important topic that certainly won’t be going away anytime soon.

Jaimey Fisher, University of California - Davis

Innovative and unique in the way it traces the popularity of the hacker as a hero in German film and television, William Mahan’s book argues that it must be understood in relation to the Germans’ anxieties about surveillance and obsession with data privacy. Departing from computer-themed science fiction Hollywood films, the German films’ depiction of hackers situates them in the physical world rather than virtual reality and foregrounds their rebellious nature. An underdog who is often historically informed and politically engaged, the hacker in the films and television series analyzed by the author can expose tensions between national security and personal privacy. Mahan delves into the ways the figure of the hacker functions as a hero, a present-day cowboy, an artist of the twenty-first century, a trickster, a ghost, or a punk, revealing how its vigilant actions alert us to the value and vulnerability of personal and national data. His accessible, well-researched study will be helpful to anyone interested in German media, hacker culture and ethics, and our current and future relationship with technology.

Alice Bardan, Mount Saint Mary's University