Description

This third edition of Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's engrossing history of the Central Intelligence Agency includes a new prologue that discusses the history of the CIA since the end of the Cold War, focusing in particular on the intelligence dimensions of the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Praise for the earlier editions:
"I have read many books on the CIA, but none more searching and still dispassionate. Nor would I have believed that a book of such towering scholarship could still be so lucid and exciting to read."--Daniel Schorr
"This is one of the best short histories of the CIA in print, up-to-date and based on a wide range of sources."--Walter Laqueur
"Judicious and reasonable. . . . A sophisticated study that should challenge us to take a more serious view about how our democracy formulates its foreign policy."--David P. Calleo, New York Times Book Review
A brief, yet subtle and penetrating, account of the Central Intelligence Agency."--Leonard Bushkoff, Christian Science Monitor
"Subtle and crisply written. . . . A book remarkable for its clarity and lack of bias."--William W. Powers, Jr., International Herald Tribune, Paris