Interviews with Scholars of National Security about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/national-security/
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 25 days 14 hours 27 minutes
Mark Mazzetti, “The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth” (Penguin, 2013)
There are many movies about evil CIA agents assassinating supposed enemies of the US. Those who saw the latest Captain America movie will have witnessed the plan by Hydra (a fascist faction within a secret agency presumably within the CIA) build floati...
Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda” (Time Books, 2011)
There are many books about the war against Al Qaeda. Most of these focus on counter-terrorism or counter insurgency military tactics or espionage operations. These books have become more frequent with the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Guido Steinberg, “German Jihad: On the Internationalisation of Islamist Terrorism” (Columbia UP, 2013)
I have read quite a few books on terrorism but always from an English language perspective. This has meant that I was missing the alternative stories from other nations. Guido Steinberg has done me a favour by publishing his German study in English.
John Earl Haynes, et al., “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” (Yale UP, 2009)
For decades, the American Right and Left argued about the degree to which the KGB infiltrated the U.S. political and scientific establishment. The Right said “A lot”; the Left said “Much less than you think.
Patrick James and Abigail Ruane, “The International Relations of Middle-Earth: Learning from the Lord of the Rings” (University of Michigan Press, 2012)
Patrick James is the Dornsife Dean’s Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. A self-described intellectual “fox,” James works on a wide variety of subjects in the study of world politics.
Martin A. Miller, “The Foundations of Modern Terrorism” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
Terrorism seems like the kind of thing that has existed since the beginning of states some 5,000 years ago. Understood in one, narrow way–as what we call “insurgency”–it probably has. But modern terrorism is, well, modern as Martin A.
Jeffrey D. Simon, “Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding the Growing Threat” (Prometheus Books, 2013)
It was timely to record this interview just after the Boston Bombing. Lone Wolf terrorists are individuals operating outside organized groups. If the allegations about the bombers in Boston are correct, then the brothers have acted in the same manner a...
Kathleen M. Vogel, “Phantom Menace or Looming Danger?: A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2012)
Kathleen M. Vogel‘s new book is enlightening and inspiring. Phantom Menace or Looming Danger?: A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) uses an approach grounded in deep ethnographic analysis of exemplary ...
Patrick Dunleavy, “The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism’s Prison Connection” (Potomac Books, 2011 )
Patrick Dunleavy is the author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism’s Prison Connection (Potomac Books, 2011). He provides us with a fascinating insight into the radicalization process within the prison system.
Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, “American Umpire” (Harvard UP, 2013)
Is there an “American Empire?” A lot of people on the Left say “yes.” Actually, a lot of people on the Right say “yes” too. But Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman says “no.” In her stimulating new treatment of the history of American foreign policy American Umpir...