$0 eBook- Spies, Espionage, and Covert Operations: From Ancient Greece to the Cold War [Kindle]

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grababargain on 01/08/2014 - 20:47 amazon.com (641 clicks)
Last edited 01/08/2014 - 20:48

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Amazon's Description:

From the #1 bestselling author of History's Greatest Generals comes an exciting new book on the greatest spies in history and how their acts of espionage and covert operations changed the course of history.

Whether it is Aeneas Tacticus, who created Western military science; Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster who foiled numerous assassination attempts and forged an international spy network at the dawn of European colonialism; or Richard Sorge, the hard-drinking German spy for the Soviets whose interception of Axis military intelligence prevented the Russian army's collapse in World War II, each of these spies had a major impact on modern society.

This book will explore the lives and times of the ten greatest spies, or spy networks, in history. Some have taken on legendary status, such as Mata Hari, the World War One-era exotic dancer and courtesan who shared the bed chambers of so many French and German officers that she couldn't help but become a double agent. Others spied for pure ideological conviction, such as George Koval, the Iowa-born spy who leaked American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, accelerating Russia's nuclear program by years and making the Cold War arm's race possible. Still others have attained a near-religious level of adoration — Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War-era spy, had a very short career but became America's first martyr and a treasured national symbol.

Whatever their reason for espionage, these spies represented the invisible hand of government power. Their lives were shrouded in mystery — and many had backgrounds so convoluted that we still do not know their true loyalties, if they ever had any. But despite their enigmatic lives, they were the invisible hand that helped direct the course of history.

US: http://www.amazon.com/Spies-Espionage-Covert-Operations-Anci…
AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/Spies-Espionage-Covert-Operations-A…
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spies-Espionage-Covert-Operations-An…

By Michael Rank, 156 pages, save $8.45, published July 16, 2014

eBook is free at time of posting. Please check price before buying.

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  Gnostikos on 01/08/2014 - 21:05

  +7

  The reviews tell no lies:

  Lovely little ebook with lots of [redacted] about [redacted] from the [redacted] to the [redacted], including the problems of today's [redacted].
  Great [redacted] like [redacted], Sir [redacted], Richard [redacted] and George [redacted].

  Was this [redacted] helpful to you? [redacted] [redacted]
  [redacted] of [redacted] people found the following [redacted] helpful.

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  Charlotta on 02/08/2014 - 08:08

  +1

  For non-sensational real information on this I'd recommend Philip Agee's 'Inside the Company: CIA Diary'.

  Details mundane daily grind within a cold-war CIA agency in developing countries of recruiting human intelligence and information sources through providing business or embassy sponsorship for the school football teams of private schools etc. These served as the initial the way of buying an entry point to influential people - and then to graduate them slowly by providing them with gifts, scholarships, holidays etc. with a view to graduating them up to be willing to receive a monthly cash retainer to provide regular confidential information on their network of contacts and their workplace. Also they would be asked to provide introductions to others with access to similarly valuable or influential positions. Once on the payroll it was a minor step further to ask for specific actions if needed - with additional grubby financial reward. Fascinating in its mundane, non-glamourous, greed-based and socially-corrosive effectiveness.

  If available somewhere this would cost you $$'s - but then judging which is the better 'bargain' will be subjective decision based on the intersection of which approach appeals more to your interests and how much you value your leisure reading time… FWIW - Cheers!

  • 

    Gnostikos on 02/08/2014 - 11:01

    +1

    I've got Agee's Inside the Company, along with John Stockwell's In Search of Enemies and Victor Marchetti's The CIA: The Cult of Intelligence. Those three are generally regarded as the pioneering exposes of spycraft and modern espionage by former "spooks" and while they are good books, they're all from before most of us were born and catalogue a very different and far simpler geo-political era (Red Vs Blue).

    Today's intelligence agencies have transitioned from being primarily HUMINT-based (Human Intelligence gathering via active case officers stationed abroad building a network of contacts) to SIGINT-based (signals capture and processing), and have gone wildly off-reservation from specialised, mostly military-related intelligence gathering, to a insanely paranoid mission scope that keeps tabs on literally everyone, whether friend, foe, domestic, foreign, legal or illegal (not that being law-abiding has ever been a top CIA priority).

    • 

      Charlotta on 02/08/2014 - 12:51

      Thx. May look up these other books.

      Pretty funny how with all the tech wizardry they were so easily brought down successively by both Bradley Manning and Edward Snowdon. Go geeks!

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  GnarlyKnuckles on 02/08/2014 - 20:14

  Thanks OP. For anyone inclined towards old-school "chic-lit", while searching for the book above I noticed that a classic called "The Spy" is free also (out of copyright I suppose):

  "The Spy: a Tale of the Neutral Ground" was James Fenimore Cooper's second novel, published in 1821. This was the earliest United States novel to win wide and permanent fame and may be said to have begun the type of romance which dominated U.S. fiction for 30 years."

  • 

    Charlotta on 03/08/2014 - 08:20

    Ah yes - the unforgettable 1821-1850-US-romance-literature period.

    Those were the days. NO shades of grey!