Other highly recommended books (2015 – 2024)

For books about subjects such as Artificial Intelligence, Corruption, Cybercrime, Disinformation, Dictatorships, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, and Surveillance, please scroll down to the Miscellaneous Section.

Espionage/Intelligence/Technology

Year of Publication: 2024

Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition
By Jeffrey Ding

God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America
Book by Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware

From Peril to Partnership: US Security Assistance and the Bid to Stabilize Colombia and Mexico
By Paul J. Angelo

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq
By Steve Coll

Year of Publication: 2023

Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West
By Calder Walton

State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America’s Secrecy Regime
By Sam Lebovic

Espionage: A Concise History
By Kristie Macrakis

Year of Publication: 2022

The Real Special Relationship: The True Story of How the British and US Secret Services Work Together
By Michael Smith

Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage
By Nathalia Holt

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
By Amy B. Zegart

The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence
By Douglas London

Year of Publication: 2021

From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform
By Thomas Fingar

From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance
By John Pomfret

Year of Publication: 2020

Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power
By Gregory Afinogenov

Year of Publication: 2019

Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community
By Richard J. Samuels

Year of Publication: 2018

The secret world: A history of intelligence
By Christopher Andrew

Year of Publication: 2015

I was a Spy!: The Classic Account of Behind-the-Lines Espionage in the First Wold War
By Marthe McKenna
(I was a Spy! was first published in 1932 with an extended forword by Sir Winston Churchill)

Miscellaneous (e.g. AI, Corruption, Cyber, Disinformation, Dictatorships, Foreign Policy, Sanctions, and Surveillance)

Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
By Anne Applebaum

How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler
By Peter Pomerantsev

Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World
By Elisabeth Braw

Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence
By Yaroslav Trofimov

American Mother
By Colum McCann, Diane Foley

A Death in Malta: An Assassination and a Family’s Quest for Justice
By Paul Caruana Galizia

How to Survive a Crisis: Lessons in Resilience and Avoiding Disaster
By David Omand

Freedom for All: An Attorney’s Guide to Fighting Human Trafficking (Second Edition)
By Kelly Hyland

Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America
By David McCormick

Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
By Paul Scharre

The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power
By Robert D. Kaplan

Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman
By Charles Dunst

The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens
By Richard Haass

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
By Martin Wolf

Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace
By Van Jackson

Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy
By Ted Galen Carpenter

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century
By Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman

Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations
By Tricia L. Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm

Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop
By Max H. Bazerman

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
By Andy Greenberg

Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump
By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics — and How to Cure It
By Richard L. Hasen

Owning the City: Property Rights in Authoritarian Regimes
By Marsha McGraw Olive

The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century
By Moisés Naím

Great Power Strategies – The United States, China and Japan
By Quansheng Zhao

Cyberinsurance Policy: Rethinking Risk in an Age of Ransomware, Computer Fraud, Data Breaches, and Cyberattacks
By Josephine Wolff

Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests
By Agathe Demarais

Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
By Mark G. Pomar

Sanctions: What Everyone Needs to Know
By Bruce Jentleson

Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control
By Josh Chin and Liza Lin

Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation
By Paris Marx

The Weakest Link: How to Diagnose, Detect, and Defend Users from Phishing
by Arun Vishwanath

War Virtually
By Roberto J. González

Rise of the Extreme Right: The New Global Extremism and the Threat to Democracy
By Lydia Khalil

Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back 
By Chris Stirewalt

The War on the West
By Douglas Murray

The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI
By Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie

Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism
By Daniel Byman

Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your PlateParadoxes of Power, 1878-1928
By Rose George

The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure
By Yascha Mounk

Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America
By Mario Daniels and John Krige

The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War
By Nicholas Mulder

The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War
By Mark Galeotti

From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right
By Michael Colborne

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
By Ronen Bergman

All Options on the Table: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation
By Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark

The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power
By David Driesen

Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
By Elizabeth D. Samet

The Afghanistan File
By Turki AlFaisal Al Saud

The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence
By Daniel W. Drezner, Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, editors

From Odessa With Love: Political And Literary Essays In Post-Soviet Ukraine
By Vladislav Davidzon

The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency
By John Mueller

Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Chappell Lawson, Alan Bersin and Juliette N. Kayyem

2034: A Novel of the Next World War
By Elliot Ackerman and James Admiral Stavridis USN

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race
By Nicole Perlroth

Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe
By Jane Harman

White-Collar and Financial Crimes: A Casebook of Fraudsters, Scam Artists, and Corporate Thieves
By Jennifer C. Noble 

Global Data Shock: Strategic Ambiguity, Deception, and Surprise in an Age of Information Overload
By Robert Mandel

The FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act: A Ready Reference for Business and Lawyers (revised and updated edition)
By Vivian Robinson, Stuart H. Deming and Truman K. Butler

Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia
By Alexander A. Cooley Ph.D. and John Heathershaw

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
By David E. Sanger

Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements, and the Case of North Korea
By Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland