A Plague upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program


Daniel Barenblatt - 2004
    This was the work of an elite group known as Unit 731, led by Japan's answer to Joseph Mengele, Dr Shiro Ishii.Under their initiative, thousands of individuals were held captive and infected with virulent strains of anthrax, plague, cholera, and other epidemic and viral diseases. Soon entire Chinese villages were being hit with biological bombs. Even American POWs were targeted. All told, more than 250,000 people were infected, and the vast majority died. Yet, after the war, US occupation forces under General Douglas MacArthur struck a deal with these doctors that shielded them from accountability.Provocative, alarming and utterly compelling, A Plague Upon Humanity draws on important original research to expose one of the most shameful chapters in human history.

Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World


Robin Wright - 2011
    The awakening involves hundreds of millions of people. And the political transformations— and tectonic changes—are only beginning.Robin Wright, an acclaimed foreign correspondent and television commentator, has covered the region for four decades. She witnessed the full cycle, from extremism’s angry birth and globalization to the rise of new movements transforming the last bloc of countries to hold out against democracy.

The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World


L. Fletcher Prouty - 1972
    Fletcher Prouty's CIA expose, was first published in the 1970s, but virtually all copies of the book disappeared upon distribution, purchased en masse by shady "private buyers." Certainly Prouty's amazing allegations--that the U-2 Crisis of 1960 was fixed to sabotage Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks, and that President Kennedy was assassinated to keep the U.S., and its defense budget, in Vietnam--cannot have pleased the CIA. Though suppressed (until now), "The Secret Team" was an important influence for Oliver Stone's Academy Award-winning film "JFK" and countless other works on U.S. government conspiracies, and it raises the same crucial question today that it did on its first appearance: who, in fact, is in control of the United States and the world?

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service


Michael Bar-Zohar - 2010
    It is also the most enigmatic, shrouded in secrecy. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service unveils the defi ning and most dangerous operations that have shaped Israel and the world at large from the agency's more than sixty-year history, among them: the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the eradication of Black September, the destruction of the Syrian nuclear facility, and the elimination of key Iranian nuclear scientists.Through intensive research and exclusive interviews with Israeli leaders and Mossad agents, authors Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal re-create these missions in riveting detail, vividly bringing to life the heroic operatives who risked everything in the face of unimaginable danger. In the words of Shimon Peres, president of Israel, this gripping, white-knuckle read "tells what should have been known and isn't--that Israel's hidden force is as formidable as its recognized physical strength."

The Man Who Kept The Secrets: Richard Helms And The CIA


Thomas Powers - 1979
    For 30 years--from the very inception of the Central Intelligence Agency & before--he occupied pivotal positions in that shadowy world: OSS operator, spymaster, planner, plotter, &, finally, for over 6 years, Agency director. No other was so closely & personally involved, over so long a period, with so many CIA activities, successful & otherwise. His story is the story of the CIA. In portraying Helms' extraordinary career, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Powers has in fact written the 1st comprehensive inside history of the CIA itself. It's a history, moreover, that is entirely uncensored. While the information on which it's based has been drawn from intensive interviews with dozens of former key Agency officials, including Helms himself, as well as from exhaustive research thru hundreds of published & unpublished sources, the author isn't subject to the kind of legal restraints that have burdened others writing about the CIA. The result is a picture of the Agency more objective, more complete & more revealing than any hitherto available. Because it's written with an eye for character & anecdote, it's as readable as it's important.

The Last Investigation


Gaeton Fonzi - 1993
    The Last Investigation is a compelling post mortem on the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as a riveting account of Fonzi's pursuit of leads indicating involvement by officers of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II


Roger Daniels - 1993
    With a revised final chapter and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels's updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation's past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again.

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America


Rick Perlstein - 2008
    Perlstein's account begins with the '65 Watts riots, nine months after Johnson's landslide victory over Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus. Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed from Congress, America was more divided than ever & a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback. Between '65 & '72, America experienced a 2nd civil war. From its ashes, today's political world was born. It was the era not only of Nixon, Johnson, Agnew, Humphrey, McGovern, Daley & Geo Wallace but Abbie Hoffman, Ronald Reagan, Angela Davis, Ted Kennedy, Chas Manson, John Lindsay & Jane Fonda. There are glimpses of Jimmy Carter, Geo H.W. Bush, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry & even of two ambitious young men named Karl Rove & Bill Clinton--& an unambitious young man named Geo W. Bush. Cataclysms tell the story: Blacks trashing their neighborhoods. White suburbanites wielding shotguns. Student insurgency over the Vietnam War. The assassinations of Rbt F. Kennedy & Martin Luther King. The riots at the '68 Democratic Nat'l Convention. The fissuring of the Democrats into warring factions manipulated by the dirty tricks of Nixon & his Committee to ReElect the President. Nixon pledging a dawn of nat'l unity, governing more divisively than any president before him, then directing a criminal conspiracy, the Watergate cover-up, from the Oval Office. Then, in 11/72, Nixon, harvesting the bitterness & resentment born of turmoil, was reelected in a landslide, not only setting the stage for his '74 resignation but defining the terms of the ideological divide characterizing America today. Filled with prodigious research, driven by a powerful narrative, Perlstein's account of how America divided confirms his place as one of our country's most celebrated historians.

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War


Craig Whitlock - 2021
    At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.

Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years


Haynes Johnson - 1991
    In human terms and living case histories, Haynes Johnson captures the drama and tragedy of an era nurtured by greed and a morality that found virtue in not getting caught."It is morning again in America," Reagan's campaign commercials told us, and for too long we embraced that convenient lie. Indeed, the problems that came to plague us in that decade are with us even more today, as Johnson memorably demonstrates in—his afterword, "Notes on an Era," written especially for this new paperback reissue. This book will remain a signature work of political analysis for years to come.

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties


Paul Johnson - 1983
    Includes end notes and master index.

Guantánamo Diary: Restored Edition


Mohamedou Ould Slahi - 2015
    Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. Although he was ordered released by a federal judge, the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go. Three years into his captivity Slahi began a diary, recounting his life before he disappeared into U.S. custody and daily life as a detainee. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir -- terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. Published now for the first time, Guantanamo Diary is a document of immense historical importance.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark


Carl Sagan - 1996
    And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.

Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah


Colm A. Kelleher - 2005
    Vanishing and mutilated cattle. Unidentified Flying Objects. The appearance of huge, otherworldly creatures. Invisible objects emitting magnetic fields with the power to spark a cattle stampede. Flying orbs of light with dazzling maneuverability and lethal consequences. For one family, life on the Skinwalker Ranch had become a life under siege by an unknown enemy or enemies. Nothing else could explain the horrors that surrounded them -- perhaps science could. Leading a first-class team of research scientists on a disturbing odyssey into the unknown, Colm Kelleher spent hundreds of days and nights on the Skinwalker property and experienced firsthand many of its haunting mysteries. With investigative reporter George Knapp -- the only journalist allowed to witness and document the team's work -- Kelleher chronicles in superb detail the spectacular happenings the team observed personally, and the theories of modern physics behind the phenomena. Far from the coldly detached findings one might expect, their conclusions are utterly hair-raising in their implications. Opening a door to the unseen world around us, Hunt for the Skinwalker is a clarion call to expand our vision far beyond what we know.

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror


Michael Scheuer - 2004
    leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger. According to the author Michael Scheuer, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe—at the urging of U.S. leaders—that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetoric “informs” the public that the Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy participatory democracy, for example, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities. Instead, a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications. Capitalizing on growing anti-U.S. animosity, Osama bin Laden’s genius lies not simply in calling for jihad, but in articulating a consistent and convincing case that Islam is under attack by America. Al Qaeda’s public statements condemn America’s protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Laden’s supporters thus identify their problem and believe their solution lies in war. Scheuer contends they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Unless U.S. leaders recognize this fact and adjust their policies abroad accordingly, even moderate Muslims will join the bin Laden camp.