In his autobiography, Edward Snowden describes his life: his first encounters with technology and the following enthusiasm he developed for coding and the internet. He talks about his career and the process up to his groundbreaking revelations in 2013 about the spying activities and large-scale data collection, especially of the NSA.

The book gives valuable insight into Snowden’s mind and motives and the inner workings of government agencies. Moreover, surveillance remains to be a highly relevant topic in modern society and is complicated to address and cover in school. The recommended Young Readers Adaptation is a short and comprehensible version perfect for the English classroom.

Teaching tip: Tell your students to buy the book with cash in a store. Online and Credit Card tracking, as well as Snowden’s role as a person of interest, could be an interesting starting point for this subject.

Autobiography · United States · 2021