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"O'Toole is . . . astonishingly good. . . . [He] is a master of the knack of weaving significant detail into his recapitulation of the war." --Alden Whitman, Chicago Sun-Times
A “splendidly written, impeccably researched, and perfectly fascinating” look at clandestine operations from colonial times to the Cuban Missile Crisis (The Washington Post Book World). We’ve always depended on intelligence gathering to drive foreign policy in peacetime and command decision in war—but that work has often taken place in the shadows. Honorable Treachery fills in these details in our national history, dramatically recounting every important intelligence operation from our nation’s birth into the early 1960s. Among numerous other stories, the book recounts how in 1795, President Washington mounted a covert operation to ransom American hostages in the Middle East; how i...
The definitive version of the Spanish-American War as well as a dramatic account of America's emergence as a global power.
On February 15, 1898, the American ship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in the Havana Harbor. News of the blast quickly reached U.S. shores, where it was met by some not with alarm but great enthusiasm. A powerful group of war lovers agitated that the United States exert its muscle across the seas. Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were influential politicians dismayed by the "closing" of the Western frontier. William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal falsely heralded that Spain's "secret infernal machine" had destroyed the battleship as Hearst himself saw great potential in whipping Americans into a frenzy. The Maine would provide the excuse they'd been waiting for. On the other sid...
Combining study with experience, Richard K. Betts draws on three decades of work within the U.S. intelligence community to illuminate the paradoxes and problems that frustrate the intelligence process. Unlike America's efforts to improve its defenses against natural disasters, strengthening its strategic assessment capabilities means outwitting crafty enemies who operate beyond U.S. borders. It also requires looking within to the organizational and political dynamics of collecting information and determining its implications for policy. Betts outlines key strategies for better intelligence gathering and assessment. He describes how fixing one malfunction can create another; in what ways expe...
Linked to a BBC1 television series, this is an account of sexual reproduction in the animal world, culminating in the question of why there should be sex in the first place - the ultimate driving force of evolution, but also selfish, aggressive, competitive, and sometimes fatal. The meeting of mates, the sexual act, and the consequences of producing offspring, forge an alliance between males and females that is rife with tension and distrust. The two sexes tactically play games with each other to get the best return from mating: at stake is the greatest reward for any animal on earth - the generation and survival of their progeny. The drive to succeed in this gives rise to a violent, beautiful and spectacular show of animal behaviour, captured here through the book's colour photographs.