4 results for "American History"

Enemies A History of the FBI

Tim Weiner
The hidden history of the FBI and its hundred-year war against terrorists, spies, and anyone it deemed subversive—including even American presidents. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A SHOWTIME ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES “Turns the long history of the FBI into a story that is as compelling, and important, as today’s headlines.”—Jeffrey Toobin, author of American Heiress Enemies is the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. We think of the FBI as America’s police force. But secret intelligence is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between national security and civil liberties, a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic. Enemies is the story of how presidents have used the FBI to conduct political warfare—and how it has sometimes been turned against them. And it is the story of how the Bureau became the most powerful intelligence service the United States possesses. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, New York Daily News, and Slate “Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner has written a riveting inside account of the FBI’s secret machinations that goes so deep into the Bureau’s skulduggery, readers will feel they are tapping the phones along with J. Edgar Hoover. This is a book that every American who cares about civil liberties should read.” —Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money “Outstanding.” — The New York Times “Absorbing . . . a sweeping narrative that is all the more entertaining because it is so redolent with screw-ups and scandals.” — Los Angeles Times “Fascinating.” — The Wall Street Journal “Important and disturbing . . . with all the verve and coherence of a good spy thriller.” —The New York Times Book Review “Exciting and fast-paced.” — The Daily Beast
Random House Publishing Group 2013-02-26 560 pages

Strange Justice The Selling of Clarence Thomas

Jane Mayer,Jill Abramson
Now a New York Times Best Seller and a National Book Award finalist. Charged with racial, sexual, and political overtones, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was one of the most divisive spectacles the country has ever seen. Anita Hill's accusation of sexual harassment by Thomas, and the attacks on her that were part of his high-placed supporters' rebuttal, both shocked the nation and split it into two camps. One believed Hill was lying, the other believed that the man who ultimately took his place on the Supreme Court had committed perjury. In this brilliant, often shocking book, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, two of the nation's top investigative journalists examine all aspects of this controversial case. They interview witnesses that the Judiciary Committee chose not to call, and present documents never before made public. They detail the personal and professional pasts of both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill and lay bare a campaign of lobbying, public rela
Houghton Mifflin 2018 406 pages

Cops across borders: the internationalization of U.S. criminal law enforcement

Nadelmann, Ethan Avram
Cops Across Borders is the first book to examine the policies and issues that lie at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. criminal justice. Drawing on interviews with nearly 300 U.S. and foreign law enforcement officials in nineteen countries as well as extensive historical and contemporary materials, Ethan Nadelmann examines how and why U.S. law enforcement officials have extended their efforts beyond American borders, how they have dealt with the challenges confronting them, and why their efforts have proved more or less successful. Nadelmann's analysis traces the evolution of U.S. law enforcement activities abroad since the nation's founding. During the nineteenth century, U.S. customs agents collected information on smuggling operations, naval officers tracked illegal slave trading vessels, slave owners tried to recover fugitive slaves who had fled to Canada and Mexico, Pinkerton detectives pursued fugitives and investigations around the world, and federal, state, and local authorities chased cattle rustlers, Indians, bandits, and revolutionaries across the border with Mexico. Today, U.S. federal law enforcement agents target an even greater array of crimes and criminals. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with agents stationed in about 70 foreign cities, is the principal nemesis of transnational drug traffickers. FBI agents abroad investigate terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens and interests as well as white-collar and organized crime. Customs agents focus on money laundering, high-tech smuggling, and a wide variety of frauds against the customs laws. Secret Service agents target counterfeiting. And attorneys in the Departments of State and Justice supervise the rendition of fugitives and the collection of evidence in criminal investigations. Cops Across Borders examines how U.S. law enforcement officials have responded to the challenges of internationalization: how DEA agents have adapted to the constraints of operating in civil-law countries that prohibit many U.S.-style investigative techniques, how DEA agents have worked with and around the widespread police corruption in Latin America, and how Justice Department officials have improved their capacity to secure evidence and fugitives from foreign countries that operate according to very different legal and social norms. Like other studies of comparative law, policing, and criminal justice, this book compares the approaches and behavior of law enforcement officials in different countries; but it also goes a step beyond those studies in its analysis of how criminal justice systems interact with and are influenced by those of other states. Nadelmann argues that the internationalization of U.S. criminal law enforcement has contributed to the "Americanization" of criminal justice systems around the world. Cops Across Borders demonstrates conclusively that the interpenetration of U.S. foreign policy and criminal justice institutions and concerns has become too substantial to be ignored by scholars any longer. It thereby breaks new ground in the study of both international relations and criminal justice. The even broader contribution of Cops Across Borders lies in its analysis of how systems devised for dealing with domestic crime respond to the demands of internationalization.
Pennsylvania State University Press 1993-09-15 524 pages

The FBI and religion: faith and national security before and after 9/11

Johnson, Sylvester A.,Weitzman, Steven
"This book is the first to examine the fraught relationship between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a variety of religious groups that have developed in the United States in the century of the FBI's existence. Encompassing religious communities that run the gamut from established religious institutions to violent extremist groups, and covering a period that includes the World Wars, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, and 9/11, Truth Faith and Allegiance tackles questions of importance for understanding the history of American religion, the history of law enforcement, and the future of religious liberty"--Provided by publisher.
University of California Press 2017-02-07 364 pages