Eavesdropping: an intimate history

Why we can't resist listening in on our neighboursEavesdropping has a bad name. It is a form of human communication in which the information gained is stolen, and where such words as cheating and spying come into play. But eavesdropping may also be an attempt to understand what goes on in the lives of others so as to know better how to live one's own. John Locke's entertaining and disturbing account explores everything from sixteenth-century voyeurism to Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'; from chimpanzee behaviour to Parisian caf--eacute--; society; fromprivate eyes to Facebook and Twitter. He uncover