20th century
A01=Jonathan Stevenson
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american
Author_Jonathan Stevenson
automatic-update
biography
case officer
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGH
Category=DNBH
Category=HBW
Category=JPSH
Category=NHW
central intelligence agency
cia
cold war
COP=United States
counterspy
covertaction
defense
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dissidence
ecuador
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gabriel garcia marquez
geopolitics
global left
idealist
inside the company
Language_English
mexico
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philip burnett franklin agee
policy
political struggle
political-military affairs
politics
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
socialism
socialist
softlaunch
strategic studies
transatlantic
united states of america
uruguay
usa
washington
whistleblowers
Product details
- ISBN 9780226356686
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 May 2021
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Philip Agee’s story is the stuff of a John le Carré novel—perilous and thrilling adventures around the globe. He joined the CIA as a young idealist, becoming an operations officer in hopes of seeing the world and safeguarding his country. He was the consummate intelligence insider, thoroughly entrenched in the shadow world. But in 1975, he became the first person to publicly betray the CIA—a pariah whose like was not seen again until Edward Snowden. For almost forty years in exile, he was a thorn in the side of his country.
The first biography of this contentious, legendary man, Jonathan Stevenson’s A Drop of Treason is a thorough portrait of Agee and his place in the history of American foreign policy and the intelligence community during the Cold War and beyond. Unlike mere whistleblowers, Agee exposed American spies by publicly blowing their covers. And he didn’t stop there—his was a lifelong political struggle that firmly allied him with the social movements of the global left and against the American project itself from the early 1970s on. Stevenson examines Agee’s decision to turn, how he sustained it, and how his actions intersected with world events.
Having made profound betrayals and questionable decisions, Agee lived a rollicking, existentially fraught life filled with risk. He traveled the world, enlisted Gabriel García Márquez in his cause, married a prima ballerina, and fought for what he believed was right. Raised a conservative Jesuit in Tampa, he died a socialist expat in Havana. In A Drop of Treason, Stevenson reveals what made Agee tick—and what made him run.
Jonathan Stevenson is senior fellow for U.S. defense and managing editor of Survival at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He was previously professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College, and he has served as director for political-military affairs, Middle East and North Africa, on the National Security Council. He is the author of several books, including Thinking Beyond the Unthinkable: Harnessing Doom from the Cold War to the Age of Terror and "We Wrecked the Place" Contemplating and End to the Northern Irish Troubles.
