In Orwell's Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell's full body of work--his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system--to examine what "Orwellian" truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell's writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of "fake news" and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism and the oppressive nature of the British Empire, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism.