'Gripping history that also informs the present' Sunday Times

'Fascinating . . . Wilford writes engagingly with a telling eye for colourful detail' The Spectator

'A spectacular achievement . . . I loved it' Dominic Sandbrook

How the CIA became an instrument of a new covert empire both in America and overseas. In 1947, the United States established the CIA to analyze foreign intelligence, but within a few years, the Agency was involved in other operations — supporting pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling domestic dissent — before transforming during the Cold War.

Drawing on decades of research, renowned intelligence historian Hugh Wilford shows how the Agency created a new Western empire, as successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to conceal overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA's post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past. Original and gripping, The CIA explains how America adopted unaccountable power and established a new imperial order.

Pages: 384, Year of Publication: 2009, Dimensions: 12.8x12.8cm