One of my guilty pleasures of govdocs is the reading lists and other book lists that agencies post. I find it fascinating to see which books an agency lists – and which they omit.
I only recently discovered one that has been around for a long time. It is the “Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf” – a regular feature in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Studies in Intelligence – a journal of the Center for the Study of Intelligence. The author is Hayden Peake, who serves in the CIA’s Directorates of Operations and Science and Technology. He has been compiling and writing reviews for the “Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf” since December 2002.
Here are some samples:
-
From Vol. 58 No. 3 Includes a review of No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, by Glenn Greenwald. One of three books about Snowden reviewed. Peake says of Greewald’s book that it is “..the most complete, though far from the most objective account of the Snowden affair to date. Lawyer-journalist Glenn Greenwald is the only one of the three authors to have met and interviewed Snowden.”
-
From Vol 58 No. 2. Includes a review of Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, by Erik Prince; (a “set-the-record-straight” account).
-
From Vol 57 No. 2. Includes a review of Ian Fleming and SOE’s Operation Postmaster: The Untold Top Secret Story Behind 007, by Brian Lett. Peake says, “Lett goes on to make the sweeping claim that for Fleming, Operation Postmaster ‘was clearly inspirational. He stored it away in his mind and eventually used these men to create James Bond, the perfect Secret Agent….'” and “The successful Operation Postmaster is a small but significant part of SOE history, and Lett tells that story well. The frequent allusions to James Bond are only distractions.”
Enjoy.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Latest Comments