Intelligence History

The definitive history of the military's decades-long investigation into mental powers and phenomena, from the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain and international bestseller Area 51. This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. For more...

Mafia Spies is the definitive account of America’s most remarkable espionage plots ever - with CIA agents, mob hitmen, “kompromat” sex, presidential indiscretion, and James Bond-like killing devices together in a top-secret mystery full of surprise twists and deadly intrigue. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination.

Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.

“For six days, it was the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate in London that riveted the world. . . . Macintyre’s superb reconstruction restores it to vivid, complex life.”—The Washington Post A thrilling tick-tock recounting of one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue...

Andrew Kirsch didn’t grow up watching spy movies, or dreaming about being a real-life James Bond. He was hardly aware that Canada even had its own intelligence service—let alone knew what its officers did. But when a terrorist attack occurred near the office of his financial services job, all of a sudden fighting terrorism meant a lot more to him than the markets. Within 18 months he had landed a job with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—where he spent the next decade of his life.

When the Detroit Red Wings were rebooting their franchise after more than two decades of relative futility, they knew the best place to find world-class players who could turn things around more quickly were conscripted servants behind the Iron Curtain. All they had to do to get them was make history by drafting them and then figure out how to get them out of the Soviet Union.

In the early days of the Cold War, the United States faced a crisis in intelligence analysis. A series of intelligence failures in 1949 and 1950, including the failure to warn about the North Korean invasion of South Korea, made it clear that gut instinct and traditional practices were no longer sufficient for intelligence analysis in the nuclear age. The new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Walter Bedell Smith, had a mandate to reform it.

In Spies, Lies, and Algorithms, Amy Zegart separates fact from fiction as she offers an engaging and enlightening account of the past, present, and future of American espionage as it faces a revolution driven by digital technology. Drawing on decades of research and hundreds of interviews with intelligence officials, Zegart provides a history of US espionage, gives an overview of intelligence basics and life inside America's intelligence agencies, and explores the vexed issues of traitors, covert action, and congressional oversight.

For more than half a century, Special Forces and CIA legend Billy Waugh dedicated his life to tracking down and eliminating America's most virulent enemies. Operating from the darkest shadows and most desolate corners of the world, he made his mark in many of the most important operations in the annals of US Spec Ops. He spent seven and a half years behind enemy lines in Vietnam as a member of a covert group of elite commandos.

From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women's vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running. In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform.

We are entering a new technological age in which artificial intelligence and immersive media will transform society at all levels, mediating our lives by altering what we see, hear, and experience. If managed well, this could unleash a new age of abundance. If managed poorly, this technological revolution could easily go astray, compromising our privacy, autonomy, agency, and humanity. Two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we're creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and give guidance on how to aim for the best future we can.

Keith Jeffery’s fascinating and revealing account draws on a wealth of archival materials never before seen by any outsider to unveil the inner workings of the world’s first spy agency. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—or MI6—was born a century ago amid rising fears of foreign military powers, especially Germany. The next 40 years saw MI6 taking an increasingly important—and, until now, largely hidden—role in shaping the history of Europe and the world.

"[Narrator Erin] Bennett’s reading is never overdone; her directness neither shies away from [author Christine] Kuehn’s unpleasant revelations nor sensationalizes them...her light expression lets the dramatic details speak for themselves." — Booklist "[Narrator Erin] Bennett's enunciation...

In The Next Renaissance, acclaimed AI advisor Zack Kass presents an optimistic and compelling vision of how artificial intelligence will shape our lives. Drawing on historical context, cutting-edge advancements, and firsthand experience, Kass lays out how AI will become a collaborative partner in building a better, more creative, and more compassionate world. Just as the original Renaissance revolutionized art, science, and society.

What is artificial intelligence, really? Not the buzzwords. Not the hype. Just the real story — of how machines learned to learn, and how we trained them on everything we are. From Alan Turing and the Imitation Game to ChatGPT, deepfakes, and corporate arms races, Speaking in Code walks through the actual history of AI: It’s a fast, unfiltered walk through the code, the culture, and the chaos of how artificial intelligence actually happened — and what it’s replacing along the way. The machine didn’t come out of nowhere. We taught it. And it’s still listening.

The inevitable is coming fast. We know it in our bones—and it’s past time to face it. The highly anticipated follow-up to Hospicing Modernity: how we activate responsibility, nurture care, and grow up in the face of collapse—includes reflections, exercises, and prompts Climate collapse...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The fast-paced inside story of America’s plunge into a volatile rivalry with the other two great nuclear powers—Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon “[A]...

After saving an Inquisitorial Acolyte, Hank must choose what to do next and the decision will have grave ramifications. Knowing that the Acolyte can be a great asset, Hank cautiously agrees to help her in exchange for information and connections. To do so, he is going to need to sneak onto the capitol planet of the Consortium, and that is no easy task. Only with the aid of some underworld connections will Hank be able to achieve his goal.

Since its founding in 1995, the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, has regained the majority of the domestic security functions of the Soviet-era KGB. Under Vladimir Putin, who served as FSB director just before becoming president, the agency has grown to be one of the most powerful and favored organizations in Russia. The FSB not only conducts internal security but also has primacy in intelligence operations in former Soviet states.

Artificial intelligence touches nearly every part of your day. While you may initially assume that technology such as smart speakers and digital assistants are the extent of it, AI has in fact rapidly become a general-purpose technology, reverberating across industries including transportation, healthcare, financial services, and many more. In our modern era, an understanding of AI and its possibilities for your organization is essential for growth and success. Artificial Intelligence Basics has arrived to equip you with a fundamental, timely grasp of AI and its impact.