Max Boot

"Step behind the headlines and witness the inner workings of power in our modern world with this riveting diary from a former Financial Times editor. Get exclusive insights into high-level decision making and political calculations during moments of crisis. Featuring close encounters with political figures like Trump, Cameron, Blair, Putin, Merkel, and more, this brutally honest and scurrilously funny portrait of power is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the real scoop behind the news."

Explore the life of legendary CIA operative, Edward Lansdale, in this epic biography by best-selling historian Max Boot. Lansdale pioneered a visionary "hearts and mind" diplomacy policy in the Philippines and Vietnam, ultimately crushed by America’s military bureaucracy. Through interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot recasts this cautionary American story with tragic complexity, tracing Lansdale’s bold rise and crashing fall from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. This "engrossing biography" rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened, with reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence.

January 1977. While the chief of the CIA's Moscow station fills his gas tank, a stranger drops a note into the car. In the years that follow, that stranger, Adolf Tolkachev. becomes one of the West's most valuable spies. At enormous risk, Tolachev and his handlers conduct clandestine meetings across Moscow, using spy cameras, disguises, and secret codes to elude the KGB in its own backyard - until a shocking betrayal puts them all at risk. Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and interviews with first-hand participants, 'The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story from the final years of the Cold War. "Non-fiction as rich and resonant as a spy novel by John Le Carre or Graham Greene." - Mail on Sunday "An astonishingly detailed picture of espionage in the 1980s, written with pacey journalistic verve and an early contemporary feel." - Brian Macintyre, The Times