The authors invited more than 100 journalists worldwide to use photographs, charts and essays to explore the world of big data and its growing influence on our lives and society.

"We live in times of increasing inscrutability. Our news feeds are filled with unverified, unverifiable speculation, much of it automatically generated by anonymous software. As a result, we no longer understand what is happening around us. Underlying all of these trends is a single idea: the belief that quantitative data can provide a coherent model of the world, and the efficacy of computable information to provide us with ways of acting within...

Aspiring playwright Kate Gamble is struggling to launch a script she's been secretly researching her entire life. ... Her father is Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies, a private data integration company whose clients include the CIA and virtually every counter-terrorism organization in the Western world. Kate's father adores her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would be the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. But Kate is compelled to...