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The CIA book club : the best-kept secret of t...
Inbunden bok.
Nära nyskick. Skyddsomslag i mycket gott skick. William Collins, 2025. Second printing. Publisher's hardcover with dust jacket. Fine condition. xix, [1], 361 pages. English text. Illustrated.
Inrikes enhetsfrakt Sverige: 62 SEK
- ISBN
- 9780008495121
- Titel
- The CIA book club - the best-kept secret of the Cold War
- Författare
- English, Charlie
- Förlag
- William Collins
- Utgivningsår
- 2025
- Omfång
- 361 sidor
- Mått
- 0 x 250 mm
- Språk
- English
- Baksidestext
- The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched for 4,300 miles from the Arctic to the Black Sea. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the conflict would be fought in the psychological sphere. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects. No one understood this more clearly than George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the 'CIA books programme', which aimed to win the Cold War with literature. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden's global CIA 'book club' would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors, including Hannah Arendt and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell and Agatha Christie. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Latterly, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed. Charlie English tells this true story of spycraft, smuggling and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission. And Minden, the CIA's mastermind, who didn't waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the 'captive nations' of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free. In The CIA Book Club, Charlie English masterfully weaves a tale of espionage and political intrigue, set against the backdrop of the 20th century's most heavily guarded border. The narrative, rich in historical and literary criticism, highlights the power of the printed word as a tool for resistance and liberation. For fans of Jenny Erpenbeck (Not a Novel), Steve Benen (The Impostors), Harald Jähner (Vertigo), Samantha Harvey (The Shapeless Unease), and Anne Applebaum (Red Famine). HarperCollins 2025.
9780008495121 -
Inrikes enhetsfrakt Sverige: 62 SEK
- ISBN
- 9780008495138
- Titel
- The CIA Book Club
- Författare
- English, Charlie
- Förlag
- Harper Collins UK
- Utgivningsår
- 2025
- Omfång
- 384 sidor
- Bandtyp
- Häftad
- Mått
- 153 x 234 mm Ryggbredd 30 mm
- Vikt
- 470 g
- Språk
- English
- Baksidestext
- This is the astonishing story of the ten million books that US intelligence smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. From copies of Orwell to Agatha Christie, the Western effort was to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc, offer different visions of thought and culture to the people, and build relationships with real readers in the East. Historian Charlie English follows the characters of the era, with Bucharest-born George Minden at the narrative's heart. Tasked with masterminding the effort, Minden understood both sides of the story: he was opposed to the intellectual straightjacket created by the communist system, but he also resented the Americans' patronising tone - the people weren't fooled by what their puppet governments were saying, but they did need culture, diversity of thought, entertainment, art, reassurance and solidarity. This is how the perilous mission to bring books as beacons of hope played out, told in riveting detail.
9780008495138 -
The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu. The Quest for...
Förlagsband med inplastat skyddsomslag. Gallrad biblioteksbok. Förutom stämplar och etiketter är boken i mycket gott skick. William Collins, London. 2017 … läs mer
Inrikes enhetsfrakt Sverige: 62 SEK- ISBN
- 9780008126636
- Titel
- The book smugglers of Timbuktu - the quest for this storied city and the race to save its treasures
- Författare
- English, Charlie
- Förlag
- William Collins
- Utgivningsår
- 2017
- Omfång
- 400 sidor
- Bandtyp
- Hardback
- Mått
- 0 x 240 mm
- Språk
- English
9780008126636
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The CIA book club - the best-kept secret of the Cold War English, Charlie 2025. William Collins 1 ex 175 SEK
