Books by Tim Weiner
Tim Weiner is an American reporter and author. His books have won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.
The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century
by Tim Weiner
In Legacy of Ashes, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Weiner told the story of the CIA in the 20th century, an agency set up to collect information but pressed by successive presidents into carrying out covert action. The Mission, according to Weiner, is "the first chronicle of the twenty-first century CIA, told in the words of those who lived it." It opens with the run-up to 9/11 and a defunded and demoralized CIA finding its way again following the disappearance of its chief raison d'être, the Soviet Union.
“This book reads like the Keystone Kops. It’s amazing how often the CIA just blundered, going from one screw-up to the next, despite having some very intelligent people. But I once listened to Tim Weiner giving an interview and he said something very profound. He said every president since it was created under Truman has abused the CIA. Too often it’s used to prove a presumed fact, a fact that has been created for domestic political purposes, and completely queers the pitch from the outset. If you’re not encouraging conclusions that may differ from your own presumptions then you’re fated to commit the mistakes of so many American presidents and heads of state everywhere. Also, while the CIA got it wrong on the Bay of Pigs, they also got it right sometimes. A perfect example of that is the US plot under Eisenhower to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddegh, the Iranian prime minister. We’re still living with the legacy of that plot today. There was a station chief in Tehran who disputed John Foster Dulles’s notion that Mosaddegh was a Soviet stooge. He was not. He was neutral. There’s an example of the CIA calling it like it was. Ditto, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s war on Chilean president Allende. The CIA was saying, ‘No, this man is not a proxy of the Soviets. He’s popular, he’s legitimate, and we should not be seen as trying to undermine him.'” Read more...
The best books on US Militarism
Stephen Glain, Foreign Correspondent
Interviews with Tim Weiner
The best books on The US Intelligence Services, recommended by Tim Weiner
The job of the intelligence services is to understand others and help leaders act more wisely, says the author of a new history of the FBI. There’s a balance to be struck between liberty and security but when the CIA and FBI do not harmonise their intelligence missions, people die.
Interviews where books by Tim Weiner were recommended
The best books on US Militarism, recommended by Stephen Glain
American presidents may not want to send troops into battle or militarise foreign policy but, in the end, most of them do. The author and journalist explains how this happens, and why it’s not even the military that’s to blame. He picks the best books on American militarism.
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1
The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom
by David Woodman -
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The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century
by Tim Weiner -
3
The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World
by Selena Wisnom -
4
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
by Garrett Graff -
5
The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life
by Sophia Rosenfeld -
6
Augustine the African
by Catherine Conybeare
New History Books
New History Books
It’s a golden age for historical writing, as well-researched and sometimes quite specialist books by historians are written in an engaging style for a broad audience. History books out in recent months range from ancient Assyria to the CIA in the 21st century.
