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We speak with the co-editor of Secrets of 24, Dan Burstein About the Book. Secrets of 24 is a thought-provoking guide to the political, moral, and philosophical issues underlying the hit television series, drawing on fascinating ideas and arguments from leading political figures, cultural commentators, celebrities, and experts in fields ranging from technology to theology. The show may not be on due to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, but the debates over the themes, issues, and even basic premises of 24 continue. (The most obvious example is the continual allusions to 24 on the presidential campaign trail to terrorism and counter-terrorism, torture and human rights.) Some of the timely and wide range of topics addressed in Secrets of 24 are: Why 24 resonates so deeply in our culture and why we’ll miss it in January owing to the writer’s strike. How 24’s “Ticking Time Bomb” scenario which Bill Clinton has called the Jack Bauer moment–continues to roil the presidential debates. Does 24 reflect reality when it comes to the war on terrorism? When is torture torture? And why one Supreme Court Justice would never prosecute Jack Bauer The future of the show and predictions about Jack Bauer’s fate by 24’s creative team. Suitcase nukes, nerve gas, bio-weapons: Terrorism’s future? Real-time suspense: How 24 works on the brain. Jihadists, Chinese, Russians, corrupt businessmen: Who are today’s bad guys? What a real-life CTU is doing to fight terrorism. The Constitution, Privacy, Human Rights vs. getting the job done. Jack Bauer vs. James Bond vs. Jack Ryan. Technology and 24: what’s real, what’s not. Cherry Jones as a female president on 24, the parallels between the fictional David Palmer character and Barack Obama, and how 24 continues to make news in campaign ’08. The ticking time clock, old fashioned storytelling, and the short attention span of our age. Jack Bauer as Jesus figure. Secrets of 24 covers these topics through interviews, permissioned commentaries, and original essays. For example: Behind-the-scenes interviews with the creative team behind 24, including co-creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, showrunner Howard Gordon, and actors Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe), Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeida), and James Morrison (Bill Buchanan). Original interviews with leading thinkers, pundits, and security and terrorism experts, including Frank Rich (New York Times), Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker), Tony Lagouranis (former US Army interrogator in Iraq), Alvin Toffler (futurist), James Woolsey (former Director of the CIA), Tom Clancy (bestselling novelist), and William Sessions (former Director of the FBI). Essays and commentaries by such luminaries as Maureen Dowd (New York Times), Jane Mayer (The New Yorker), Michael Chertoff (Secretary of Homeland Defense), Sarah Vowell (This American Life), John Leonard (New York Magazine), Dorothy Rabinowitz (Wall Street Journal), and John Robb (author of “Brave New War”). There is much more, and a complete contributors list plus the table of contents of the book are available on this site. Secrets of 24 is written by the same team who created the “Secrets” series, including the New York Times and worldwide best-selling Secrets of the Code, a guide to Dan Brown’s mega-seller, The Da Vinci Code. Secrets of 24 will be in stores just in time for the holiday gift season and for the release of Season 6 of 24 on DVD. On that occasion, and as part of their promotional efforts for the DVD, Fox TV will be distributing the book to the media. Dan Burstein, Editor, launched Squibnocket Partners LLC as an innovative content development company in 2003 with his business partner, Arne J. de Keijzer. The next year, they published Secrets of the Code, which went on to spend more than six months on the New York Times best-seller list and to become a global blockbuster, appearing in more than thirty languages and in multiple editions all over the world. Secrets of 24 is the fifth title in the Secrets series. Altogether, there are over 4 million books in print in the Secrets series worldwide. Three Squibnocket titles Secrets of the Code, Secrets of Angels & Demons, and Secrets of Mary Magdalene have been turned into documentary films. Maintaining an active full-time career as a venture capitalist (his “day job”), in addition to his involvement with the Secrets series, Burstein is founder and managing partner of Millennium Technology Ventures, a New York based venture capital firm that invests in innovative companies. He has served on the boards of more than a dozen early-stage technology companies and is currently a director of Applied Minds, a leading-edge research lab, and Global Options, a publicly traded international risk management company. From 1988 to 2000, he was senior advisor at The Blackstone Group, one of Wall Street’s leading private merchant banks. He is also a prominent corporate strategy consultant and has served as an advisor to CEOs, senior management teams, and global corporations, including Sony, Toyota, Microsoft, Boardroom Inc., and Sun Microsystems. Burstein is also an award-winning journalist and author of numerous books on global economics and technology. His most recent technology-related book is BLOG! How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture, cowritten with David Kline, and widely considered the most definitive book about the rise of the blogosphere. Burstein’s 1988 book Yen!, about the rise of Japanese financial power, was an international best-seller in more than twenty countries. In 1995, his book Road Warriors was one of the first to analyze the impact of the Internet and digital technology on business and society. His 1998 book Big Dragon (written with Arne J. de Keijzer), outlined a long-term view of Chinas role in the twenty-first century that has, so far, turned out to be prescient. Working as a freelance journalist in the 1980s, Burstein published more than a thousand articles in over two hundred publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Rolling Stone, Paris Match, le Nouvel Observateur, L Expansion, and many others in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Burstein has appeared on numerous TV documentaries and news specials, ranging from the programs broadcast on the History Channel, MSNBC, and CNN, and to Charlie Rose and Oprah!?
