The CIA

An Imperial History

By: Hugh Wilford

Narrated by: Hugh Wilford

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

'A spectacular achievement' Dominic Sandbrook

'Fast-paced, absorbing, insightful' Simon Hall

'Simply superb' Kathryn Olmsted

A celebrated British historian of US intelligence explores how the CIA was born in anti-imperialist idealism but swiftly became an instrument of a new covert empire both in America and overseas.

As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyse foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters in the US.

The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation - but not the only one. In The CIA, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA's post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past.

Comprehensive, original, and gripping, The CIA is the story of the birth of a new imperial order in the shadows. It offers the most complete account yet of how America adopted unaccountable power and secrecy both at home and abroad.

©2024 Hugh Wilford (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

'One of those rare and irresistible publications which transform how you think about its subject matter . . . The cast of characters is a rogue's gallery of swashbuckling spies and saboteurs . . . In charting how this band of imperial adventurers looked to covertly redraw the map of the world, especially in the global south, this magnificent book will change our understanding of the history of the CIA and American foreign relations' (Christopher Moran, author of COMPANY CONFESSIONS)

'Wilford is an undisputed authority on the history of the CIA . . . His new book is another blockbuster . . . The past lives but it needs to be brought to life - and Wilford has shown once again that he is a master of that particular art. A must read' (Inderjeet Parmar, author of FOUNDATIONS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY)

'An ambitious and original book. It is not only richly informative but also provocative and insightful. Filled with fascinating and brilliantly researched detail, it shows how the rise of the CIA is intertwined with America's winding path to globalism' (Richard J. Aldrich, author of GCHQ)