The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
by Mark Mazzetti
- Used
- very good
- Paperback
- Condition
- Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 014312501X
- ISBN 13
- 9780143125013
- Seller
-
Henrico, Virginia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
A Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter’s riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and America’s special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines in the world’s dark spaces: the new American way of war The most momentous change in American warfare over the past decade has taken place away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the corners of the world where large armies can’t go. The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies. This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime. Mark Mazzetti tracks an astonishing cast of characters on the ground in the shadow war, from a CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played to the chain-smoking Pentagon official running an off-the-books spy operation, from a Virginia socialite whom the Pentagon hired to gather intelligence about militants in Somalia to a CIA contractor imprisoned in Lahore after going off the leash. At the heart of the book is the story of two proud and rival entities, the CIA and the American military, elbowing each other for supremacy. Sometimes, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, their efforts have been perfectly coordinated. Other times, including the failed operations disclosed here for the first time, they have not. For better or worse, their struggles will define American national security in the years to come.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Book People (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 47220
- Title
- The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
- Author
- Mark Mazzetti
- Format/Binding
- Trade Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 014312501X
- ISBN 13
- 9780143125013
- Publisher
- Penguin Books
- Place of Publication
- Qf3
- Date Published
- March 2014
- Pages
- 416
Terms of Sale
Book People
About the Seller
Book People
About Book People
We fulfill orders requested via email, online, or telephone, and we accept special orders such as out-of-print books, international mail orders, and titles from boutique publishers.
Book People has long had a strong community presence and sponsors several book clubs and numerous book and author events. The store supports educators and provides them a 20% discount. As part of its advocacy for free speech, Book People takes a stand against book banning and keeps an up-to-date display of books currently under threat in schools and libraries across the country.
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Book People founder Ruth Erb first opened the store at an earlier incarnation of the Willow Lawn shopping center. Because she loved books, loved working with people, and wanted to combine the two, she called her new store Book People. In 1986, Erb moved the store to Granite Avenue in the Westhampton part of Richmond, where it did a brisk business. Former store employee David Shuman purchased Book People from Erb in 2018, and he has recently relocated the store to larger quarters in the Gleneagles shopping center in western Henrico.
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- Trade Paperback
- Used to indicate any paperback book that is larger than a mass-market paperback and is often more similar in size to a hardcover...
- Shelf Wear
- Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....