"Covert Legions is the history of the U.S. Army's intelligence organization in Germany from the Allies' arrival in late 1944 to the end of the military government in 1949. It covers Army intelligence operations during this period, including denazification and democratization, the capture of German scientists and scientific technology, and espionage and counterespionage activity against local communist organizations and the Soviet occupation forces"--

Based on extensive archival research in six countries and intensive fieldwork, the book analyzes the history of the village of Nkholongue on the eastern (Mozambican) shores of Lake Malawi from the time of its formation in the 19th century to the present day. The study uses Nkholongue as a microhistorical lens to examine such diverse topics as the slave trade, the spread of Islam, colonization, subsistence production, counter-insurgency, decolonization, civil war, ecotourism, and matriliny. Thereby, the book attempts to reflect as much as possible on the generalizability and (global) comparability of local findings by framing analyses in historiographical discussions that aim to go beyond the regional or national level. Although the chapters of the book deal with very different topics, they are united by a common interest in the social history of rural Africa in the longue durée. Contrary to persistent clichés of rural inertia in Africa, the book as a whole underscores the profound changeability of social conditions and relations in Nkholongue over the years and highlights how people’s room for maneuver kept changing as a result of the Winds of History, the frequent and often violent ruptures brought to the village from outside.

In this newly revised and updated edition of his essential work, John Prados adds his concluding findings on U.S. covert operations in Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and the Persian Gulf. Acclaimed as a landmark book about U.S. intelligence agencies in the postwar era, Presidents' Secret Wars describes the secret warfare mounted by the president, the CIA, and the Pentagon--operations aimed at altering the destinies of nations and the course of global politics. Mr. Prados uses many newly declassified documents to open a vital window on this most secret aspect of American foreign policy. "A worthy and informative book"--Washington Post. "An important book....Prados's recounting of the often neglected early days of the C.I.A. and its covert activities is especially enlightening."--New York Times Book Review. "For those concerned with the study of intelligence, Presidents' Secret Wars will be highly useful because Dr. Prados has done serious archival research....This volume moves the study of covert operations to a higher and more sophisticated plane"--Intelligence and National Security.

From its founding in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency has been discovered in the midst of some of the most crucial-and most embarrassing-episodes in United States relations with the world. Safe for Democracy for the first time places the story of the CIA's covert operations squarely in the context of America's global quest for democratic values and institutions. National security historian John Prados offers a comprehensive history of the CIA's secret wars that is as close to a definitive account as is possible today.

Getting the Message Through, the companion volume to Rebecca Robbins Raines' Signal Corps, traces the evolution of the corps from the appointment of the first signal officer on the eve of the Civil War, through its stages of growth and change, to its service in Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM. Raines highlights not only the increasingly specialized nature of warfare and the rise of sophisticated communications technology, but also such diverse missions as weather reporting and military aviation. Information dominance in the form of superior communications is considered to be sine qua non to modern warfare. As Raines ably shows, the Signal Corps--once considered by some Army officers to be of little or no military value--and the communications it provides have become integral to all aspects of military operations on modern digitized battlefields. The volume is an invaluable reference source for anyone interested in the institutional history of the branch.

Spies of the Kaiser examines the scope and objectives of German covert operations in Great Britain before and during the First World War. It assesses the effect of German espionage on Anglo-German relations and discusses the extent to which the fear of German espionage in the United Kingdom shaped the British intelligence community in the early Twentieth-century. The study is based on original archival material, including hitherto unexploited German records and recently declassified British documents.