Great Books on Espionage (nonfiction)
Top 10 Great Books on Espionage (nonfiction)
: Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage, The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage, Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II
| Author | Liza Mundy |
| ISBN | 0316439894 |
In the tradition of Hidden Figures and The Girls of Atomic City, Code Girls is the astonishing, untold story of the young American women who cracked key Axis codes, helping to secure Allied victory and revolutionizing the field of cryptanalysis.
Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small...
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
| Author | Ben Macintyre |
| ISBN | 0804136637 |
Master storyteller Ben Macintyre’s most ambitious work to date brings to life the twentieth century’s greatest spy story.
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height...
| Author | Douglas C. Waller |
| ISBN | 1416567445 |
He was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals, the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, "Wild Bill" Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country's first national intelligence agency)...
Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
| Author | Joseph E. Persico |
| ISBN | 0375761268 |
Despite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations.
Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations:
-FDR...
| Author | Marcus Binney |
| ISBN | 0060540877 |
The Special Operations Executive was formed by Winston Churchill in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze." In the SOE women were trained to handle guns and explosives, work undercover, endure interrogation by the Gestapo, and use complex codes. In The Women Who Lived for Danger, acclaimed historian Marcus...
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews...
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
| Author | Ben Macintyre |
| ISBN | 0307990443 |
In his celebrated bestsellers Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre told the dazzling true stories of a remarkable WWII double agent and of how the Allies employed a corpse to fool the Nazis and assure a decisive victory. In Double Cross, Macintyre returns with the untold...
| Author | Miranda Carter |
| ISBN | 0374105316 |
The first full biography of the notorious spy-- and an X-ray of the British ruling class that produced him.
Once an untouchable member of England's establishment-- a world-famous art historian and a man knighted by the Queen of England-- in a single stroke Anthony Blunt became an object of universal...
The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage
| Author | Frederick P. Hitz |
| ISBN | 0375412107 |
In this fascinating analysis, Frederick Hitz, former inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, contrasts the writings of well-known authors of spy novels—classic and popular—with real-life espionage cases. Drawing on personal experience both as a participant in “the Great...
| Author | Stephen E. Ambrose |
| ISBN | 1578062071 |
Dwight D. Eisenhower's public image was that of a wide-grinning Daddy Warbucks who preferred the golf course over the cabinet room. He was perceived as a military bureaucrat who never held a combat command. A Republican sandwiched between two Democratic administrations, he lacked the political...
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
| Author | David E. Hoffman |
| ISBN | 0385537603 |
From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold War
While...
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise...
| Author | Stephen Budiansky |
| ISBN | 0452287472 |
Queen Elizabeth I and England's First Spymaster
Sir Francis Walsingham's official title was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, but in fact this pious, tight-lipped Puritan was England's first spymaster. A ruthless, fiercely loyal civil servant, Walsingham worked brilliantly...
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
For the last sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President...
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War
| Author | Karen Abbott |
| ISBN | 0062092898 |
Karen Abbott, the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and “pioneer of sizzle history” (USA Today), tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything to become spies during the Civil War.
Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet...
Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal
| Author | Ben Macintyre |
| ISBN | 0307353400 |
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona...
| Author | Les Standiford |
| ISBN | 0061899550 |
Excellent examination of the events leading up to the Revolution...these pre-Revolution events are not often written about in depth. Great insights into why the Revolution began.
I didn't really like how the author described the colonists as "liberal," and inserted snide remarks against...
| Author | Henry A. Crumpton |
| ISBN | 1611760712 |
A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions
For a crucial period, Henry Crumpton led the CIA's global covert...
| Author | Robert M. Gates |
| ISBN | 1416543368 |
Bob Gates’ From The Shadows is an interesting book by the former director of the CIA. Gates held numerous posts in the National Security Council and CIA’s analytic directorate. The book has very little “inside baseball” and is much more a history of the times, from the perspective of national...
The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World
| Author | Allen W. Dulles |
| ISBN | 1592282970 |
If the experts could point to any single book as a source for understanding twentieth-century intelligence, that book would be Allen W. Dulles's The Craft of Intelligence. This classic of spycraft is based on Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier...
| Author | Christopher M. Andrew |
| ISBN | 0307263630 |
An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation...
| Author | Howard Blum |
| ISBN | 0062458272 |
The New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of a critical, recently declassified counterintelligence...
