The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future
Rs. 3,390.00
Chris Whipple
“The best book about the CIA I’ve ever read. Its revelations are eye-popping, alternately exhilarating and depressing…How Whipple managed to pull so much history together, how he extracted such a wealth of detail from his principal sources—the CIA leaders themselves—is quite simply mind-boggling. This is an important book. And one hell of a story.” —Christopher Buckley, New York Times bestselling author of The White House Mess and Thank You for Smoking
“Compelling…Chris Whipple does for the CIA and Washington DC what Plutarch did for those whose job it was to expand and defend the glory of Rome—paint an indelible portrait of how the servants of government seek to know and control the world….One theme emerges from the career of each director—how difficult it is to tell presidents anything they don’t want to hear.” —Thomas Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers, a remarkable, behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run the world’s most powerful intelligence agency, and how the CIA is often a crucial counterforce against presidents threatening to overstep the powers of their office.
Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world’s most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities—spying, espionage, and covert action—take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms’s refusal to conceal Richard Nixon’s criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.
Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world’s elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners—or clashes—with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare.
Out of stock
Notify me when stock available
About the Author
Book Specifications
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 400
Published Year: 2020
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
ISBN: 9781471183720
Related products
-
A Promised Land
Rs. 5,490.00or 3 X Rs.1,830.00 withBarack Obama
The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller
– A Riveting Presidential Memoir by Barack Obama. From his early aspirations to historic victories, Obama shares his personal journey as the first African American president of the United States. Reflecting on the limits of presidential power, U.S. politics, and global challenges, Obama provides candid insights into decision-making, challenges faced, and the belief in progress. Beautifully written and introspective, this memoir captures Obama’s conviction that democracy is built on empathy and understanding.”
or 3 X Rs. 1,830.00 withRead more
-
Emil Ludwig’s Napoleon
Rs. 2,190.00or 3 X Rs.730.00 with“Ludwig’s book is a classic for a reason. His interpretation of Napoleon is both sympathetic and critical, and he manages to shed light on both the man and the historical context in which he lived. While there have been many biographies of Napoleon over the years, Ludwig’s remains one of the best.” – Barnes & Noble review
The story of Napoleon produces on me an impression like that produced by the revelation of Saint John the Divine. We all feel there must be something more in it, but we d not know what. — GOETHE
or 3 X Rs. 730.00 withRead more
-
A Life in the Shadows
Rs. 3,190.00or 3 X Rs.1,063.33 withA.S. Dulat
He is one of India’s most successful spymasters, renowned for his methods of engagement and accommodation in handling the Kashmir issue. Dulat, the author of two bestselling books, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years (2014) and The Spy Chronicles: R&AW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace (2018), is sought after for his views on India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. In this unique memoir, Dulat breaks his notorious silence about his personal life, sharing stories from his Partition-bloodied childhood to his experiences as a young intelligence officer, encounters with international spymasters, travels around the world, observations on Kashmir post Article 370, and encounters with world leaders and celebrities. With remarkable honesty, verve, and wit, Dulat provides insights into a life richly lived and observed.
or 3 X Rs. 1,063.33 withAdd to cart
-
The Last Raid: The Commandos, Channel Islands and Final Nazi Raid
Rs. 2,990.00or 3 X Rs.996.67 withWill Fowler
‘Will Fowler’s account of the last German commando raids mounted from the Channel Islands against Allied targets in mainland France – thoroughly researched in both the Allied and German sources – is one of those fascinating footnotes to the history of the war that are too often forgotten.” —Martin Windrow, author of The Last Valley
When Germany occupied the originally ‘demilitarised’ Channel Islands in 1940, Hitler ordered the area to be staunchly fortified with colossal permanent structures like Battery Moltke on Jersey. As it was the only piece of the British Isles in Nazi control, he was determined that the islands should remain German forever. Churchill was equally obsessed, urging numerous commando raids and harebrained schemes for the invasion and liberation of the islands. But when France was freed in 1944, the Channel Islands were completely bypassed. German troops were cut off from their supplies and the island population began to starve.
Occupied for almost the entire war, these quintessentially English islands serve as a fascinating microcosm of what Britain might have been like under Nazi rule. With one German soldier to every three islanders, resistance had to remain at a low level: possession of a radio merited a prison sentence. The Last Raid is an atmospheric account of life under German occupation, as well as the political maneuvering behind the scenes. With the first detailed account in English of the Granville Raid, a unique German commando operation, Will Fowler combines the social experience of war with the military to form a fascinating chronicle of the fight for the Channel Islands during the Second World War.
or 3 X Rs. 996.67 withRead more
-
The Spy and the Traitor
Rs. 2,390.00or 3 X Rs.796.67 with- The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller
- A BBC Between the Covers book club pick
- Shortlisted for the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize
‘THE BEST TRUE SPY STORY I HAVE EVER READ’ — JOHN LE CARRÉ
An exciting Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain’s greatest historians and the ultimate gift for anyone who loves a good spy thriller!
On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket.
The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever…
or 3 X Rs. 796.67 withRead more
-
The Story of Russia
Rs. 3,190.00or 3 X Rs.1,063.33 withOrlando Figes
‘A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship’ — SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE
‘If you really want to understand Putin’s Russia today . . . then you simply have to read Figes’s superb account in The Story of Russia‘ — ANTONY BEEVOR
From the great storyteller of Russia, a spellbinding account of the myths and ideologies that have shaped the country’s past – and how they can inform its present.
No other country has reimagined its own past so frequently, or endured such vast differences in ruling ideologies, as Russia. This story begins in the first millennium, when the Viking-Slavic state of Kievan Rus was formed, and ends with Putin’s war against Ukraine. Spanning the medieval myths of Russia’s holy mission, the popular belief in a paternal tsar and the notion of the ‘Russian soul’, Orlando Figes explores the ideas that have guided the country’s actions throughout its long and troubled history.
The Story of Russia is about the stories the Russians have told of their past, and the ideas that have shaped those stories, as much as it is about the events and institutions, social groups and leaders that make up that history. Here, Figes brings into sharp relief the recurrent themes that remain so important in understanding the country today through the vibrant characters of its rich history: from Boris and Gleb, the first saints of the Russian Church, to the crowning of sixteen-year-old Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral; and from Catherine the Great, riding out in a green uniform to arrest her husband at his palace, to the bitter last days of the Romanovs.
Beautifully written and based on a lifetime of scholarship, The Story of Russia is quintessential Figes: sweeping, suspenseful, masterful.
or 3 X Rs. 1,063.33 withRead more
-
Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls
Rs. 3,390.00or 3 X Rs.1,130.00 withTim Marshall
New from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography We feel more divided than ever. This riveting analysis tells you why. Walls are going up. Nationalism and identity politics are on the rise once more. Thousands of miles of fences and barriers have been erected in the past ten years, and they are redefining our political landscape.
There are many reasons why we erect walls, because we are divided in many ways: wealth, race, religion, politics. In Europe the ruptures of the past decade threaten not only European unity, but in some countries liberal democracy itself. In China, the Party’s need to contain the divisions wrought by capitalism will define the nation’s future. In the USA the rationale for the Mexican border wall taps into the fear that the USA will no longer be a white majority country in the course of this century.
Understanding what has divided us, past and present, is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today. Covering China; the USA; Israel and Palestine; the Middle East; the Indian Subcontinent; Africa; Europe and the UK, bestselling author Tim Marshall presents a gripping and unflinching analysis of the fault lines that will shape our world for years to come.
or 3 X Rs. 1,130.00 withAdd to cart
-
The Secret World: A History of Intelligence
Rs. 3,190.00or 3 X Rs.1,063.33 withChristopher Andrew
To write a world history of intelligence, from the dawn of recorded history to the present day, is a daunting task. To make such a work accurate, comprehensive, digestible and startling, and all in a single volume, is a stellar achievement. But that is what Christopher Andrew has done in The Secret World. — Edward Lucas ― The Times
Brilliant in its sweep and near-miraculous in the detail and confident judgements provided on two and a half millennia of spying … The book is a crowning triumph of one of the most adventurous scholars of the security world — John Lloyd ― Financial Times
The first-ever detailed, comprehensive history of intelligence, from Moses and Sun Tzu to the present day
The history of espionage is far older than any of today’s intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada.
Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of World War I, the grasp of intelligence shown by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and leading eighteenth-century British statesmen.
or 3 X Rs. 1,063.33 withRead more
-
The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich
Rs. 4,890.00or 3 X Rs.1,630.00 withWilliam L Shirer
The standard work by which all others on the subject are still measured . . . Erudite, comprehensive and detailed, always lively and readable, it is the model of what a popular narrative history should be. ― Guardian
One of the most important works of history of our time. ― New York Times
In this political season, William L. Shirer’s mammoth history of Hitler’s Germany seems a useful guide to how a skilled demagogue can seize and destroy a great nation. ― Chicago Tribune
‘I can think of no book which I would rather put in the hands of anyone who wanted to find out what happened in Germany between 1930 and 1945, and why the history of those years should never be forgotten’ – Alan Bullock
It was Hitler’s boast that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. Instead it lasted only twelve. But into its short life was packed the most cataclysmic series of events that Western civilisation has ever known.
William Shirer is one of the very few historians to have gained full access to the secret German archives which the Allies captured intact. He was also present at the Nuremberg trials.
First published sixty years ago, Shirer’s account of the years 1933–45, when the Nazis, under the rule of their despotic leader Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany is held up as a classic of its time. Some of his views have not stood the test of time but in this book Shirer explores how the Nazis commandeered the Holocaust, one of the most shocking acts of evil in modern history, plunged the world into a second war, and changed the face of modern history and modern Europe forever.
or 3 X Rs. 1,630.00 withRead more
-
Alexander The Great
Rs. 1,090.00or 3 X Rs.363.33 withJacob Abbott
A king at nineteen, dead at thirty-two and in between.. an empire that refused to end.This is the incredible true story of Alexander the Great, the boy who set out to win till there were ?no more worlds to conquer.? a ruthless and self-willed king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia, Alexander?s rule extended from Greece to Egypt to India, making him one of history?s most successful military commanders. This enlightening account of the great king?s remarkable life, highlights not only his phenomenal military accomplishments, unparalleled success and victories and adept leadership qualities, but also brings for us an insight into this extremely interesting man?s life. Alexander the Great?s story is one of the most fascinating ones ever told and he continues to attract the attention of mankind by remaining an unsurpassed legendary hero.
or 3 X Rs. 363.33 withRead more
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.