Active Measures (Paperback)
The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
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This startling history of secret psychological operations traces the century-long rise of organized deception from the Russian Revolution to contemporary internet troll farms
A GUARDIAN POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR
We live in an age of subterfuge. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. Even before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was 'carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign' to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.
In this astonishing journey through a century of secret psychological war, Rid reveals for the first time some of history's most significant operations - many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Berlin Wall; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander that produces Germany's best jazz magazine.
Active Measures (Ebook)
The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
Buy from
This startling history of secret psychological operations traces the century-long rise of organized deception from the Russian Revolution to contemporary internet troll farms
A GUARDIAN POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR
We live in an age of subterfuge. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. Even before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was 'carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign' to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.
In this astonishing journey through a century of secret psychological war, Rid reveals for the first time some of history's most significant operations - many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Berlin Wall; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander that produces Germany's best jazz magazine.
Active Measures (Audiobook)
The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
Buy from
This startling history of secret psychological operations traces the century-long rise of organized deception from the Russian Revolution to contemporary internet troll farms
A GUARDIAN POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR
We live in an age of subterfuge. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. Even before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was 'carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign' to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.
In this astonishing journey through a century of secret psychological war, Rid reveals for the first time some of history's most significant operations - many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Berlin Wall; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander that produces Germany's best jazz magazine.
Active Measures (Hardback)
The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
Buy from
This startling history of secret psychological operations traces the century-long rise of organized deception from the Russian Revolution to contemporary internet troll farms
A GUARDIAN POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR
We live in an age of subterfuge. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. Even before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was 'carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign' to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.
In this astonishing journey through a century of secret psychological war, Rid reveals for the first time some of history's most significant operations - many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Berlin Wall; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander that produces Germany's best jazz magazine.
Reviews for Active Measures
Peter Pomerantsev Spectator
John S Gardner Guardian
Jonathan Freedland New York Review of Books
Edward Lucas The Times
David Ignatius Washington Post
Lloyd Green Guardian
Helen Warrell Financial Times
Rick Ledgett Former deputy director of the NSA
Rory Cormac TLS
Tony Barber FT books of summer 2020
Lawrence D. Freedman Foreign Affairs
Publishers Weekly starred review
Economist
James Gibney The American Scholar
Anne Applebaum Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History
John Sipher former member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service
Andrei Soldatov coauthor of The Red Web: The Kremlin's War on the Internet
Nada Bakos former analyst and targeting officer at the CIA
Thomas Rid
Thomas Rid is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author most recently of the acclaimed Rise of the Machines (2016), a history of cybernetics. He testified on disinformation in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.