Near and Distant Neighbors
A New History of Soviet Intelligence
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Narrated by:
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Shaun Grindell
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By:
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Jonathan Haslam
About this listen
Previous histories have focused on the KGB, leaving military intelligence and the special service - which specialized in codes and ciphers - lurking in the shadows. Drawing on previously neglected Russian sources, Haslam reveals how both were in fact crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents the regime had relied upon - Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Donald Maclean - were betrayed.
In the wake of these failures, Khrushchev and his successors discarded ideological recruitment in favor of blackmail and bribery. The tactical turn was so successful that we can draw only one conclusion: the West ultimately triumphed despite, not because of, the espionage war. In bringing to light the obscure inhabitants of an undercover intelligence world, Haslam offers a surprising and unprecedented portrayal of Soviet success that is not only fascinating but also essential to understanding Vladimir Putin's power today.
©2015 Jonathan Haslam (P)2015 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Agent Sniper
- The Cold War Superagent and the Ruthless Head of the CIA
- By: Tim Tate
- Narrated by: Tim Tate
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Michal Goleniewski, cover name Sniper, was one of the most important spies of the early Cold War. For two and a half years at the end of the 1950s, as a Lt. Colonel at the top of Poland’s espionage service, he smuggled more than 5,000 top-secret Soviet bloc intelligence and military documents, as well as 160 rolls of microfilm, out from behind the Iron Curtain. In January 1961, he abandoned his wife and children and made a dramatic defection across divided Berlin with his East German mistress to the safety of American territory.
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Very entertaining cold war spy story
- By Jason on 12-18-21
By: Tim Tate
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Wise Gals
- The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage
- By: Nathalia Holt
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humor and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels.
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Intriguing untold history
- By Andrea Guzman on 12-15-22
By: Nathalia Holt
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Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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A Man Called Intrepid
- The Incredible WWII Narrative of the Hero Whose Spy Network and Secret Diplomacy Changed the Course of History
- By: William Stevenson
- Narrated by: David McAlister
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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A Man Called Intrepid is the account of the world’s first integrated intelligence operation and of its master, William Stephenson. Codenamed INTREPID by Winston Churchill, Stephenson was charged with establishing and running a vast, worldwide intelligence network to challenge the terrifying force of Nazi Germany. Nothing less than the fate of Britain and the free world hung in the balance as INTREPID covertly set about stalling the Nazis by any means necessary.
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You have to wonder ...
- By Mike From Mesa on 04-15-14
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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The Brothers
- John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?
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A duel biography
- By Jean on 09-26-14
By: Stephen Kinzer
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88 Days to Kandahar
- A CIA Diary
- By: Robert L. Grenier
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In his gripping narrative, we meet General Tommy Franks, who bridles at CIA control of "his" war; General "Jafar Amin", a gruff Pakistani intelligence officer who saves Grenier from committing career suicide; Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's brilliant ambassador to the US, who tries to warn her government of the al-Qaeda threat; "Mark", the CIA operator who guides GulAgha Shirzai to bloody victory over the Taliban.
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Honest conclusion based on practical realities.
- By rehman on 03-30-15
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Directorate S
- The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 28 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
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Slow At Times But Always Horrifying And Engaging
- By Gillian on 02-20-18
By: Steve Coll
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The New Nobility
- The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB
- By: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogin
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse.
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A little difficult to follow
- By Jairus on 12-10-10
By: Andrei Soldatov, and others
What listeners say about Near and Distant Neighbors
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Donald J. Sage
- 03-19-16
Terrible Narrator
He uses a variety of upspeak by emphasizing words having no relationship to the meaning of the text.
Very annoying
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1 person found this helpful
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- Alex
- 12-22-15
Horrendous performance, interesting material
The reader is beyond bad. There are no sentences, just clipped single words read in a machine like monotone. This makes it extremely difficult to absorb the meaning. Listen to the sammoke before purchasing.
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2 people found this helpful
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- James A. Bretney
- 09-04-17
Narration not good
You have to be very familiar with Soviet Espionage History to keep up. His insights are some what esoteric. The narration of this book is very distracting.
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- Izchuzchiy
- 07-20-17
Good book horrible narrator
The book was good and deep considering the dearth of sources regarding the topic. However, this narrator was horrible and robotic in his delivery. Struggling to pronounce Russian names and places, choppy and didn't flow well.
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1 person found this helpful
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- NW
- 02-25-21
Skip the audiobook and buy a print copy.
A fascinating book so far but four chapters in and I am compelled to abandon the audiobook.
The narration is atrocious.
The. Narrator obviously. Gra-du-ated. From. The. William. Shatner. School of. Voice. Acting.
The prosody is nearly impossible to listen to. At 1.5x speed you can begin to push past the broken rhythm but I spent more time struggling against the narration then absorbing the content.
How a publisher could ever think to release an audiobook in this style is incomprehensible to me. That the narrator is even able to obtain work as a voice actor is equally incomprehensible.
This is a shame as it hardely does justice to the actual book. I will be buying a print copy.
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- bergwerk
- 03-17-24
Detailed, too much
Reads more like an extended dissertation, with lots of scholarly detail. Not the most lucid telling and some of the detail seems like it should be in a footnote. The accent of the reader doesn’t stand up well to increased playback speed or background noise
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- Josh
- 11-14-22
Why is he narrating this like it’s a secret or a mystery?
The information is interesting and the cadence is fine for the written material.
The narration, however, is abysmal. Why on earth he made the choice to read as though it’s a mystery or something similar is beyond me. Super takes away from the non-fiction subject and makes it out to be more of a young adults mystery novel. Just horrible.
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- Troy
- 05-21-17
Horrid monotone audio. I hate giving bad reviews. The has no chance of being worse than this audio.
Argh blah blah blad very blad bad reader can not pronounce Russian names. Ouch
Bookhas to be better
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- Andy from SoCal
- 01-06-16
Narration Makes This Book Hard Work
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
The narration really got in the way of the story: choppy and disjointed. It combined the worst of Christopher Walken's phrasing with up-talk from a Valley girl. I think the narrator got paid extra to insert random pregnant pauses and commas throughout the text. I just couldn't finish the book because it was so difficult to listen to.
What could Jonathan Haslam have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
I think the book was meant to be read silently to oneself, the phrasing and use of parenthetical asides hurt the ability of the narrator to tell the story in a compelling way.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Shaun Grindell?
Lots of British narrators would have done a good job, for example Frederick Davidson.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
It's a very interesting story and I might buy the physical book but it is impossible for me to keep engaged in the audio book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lars
- 04-27-17
The narrator is a machine!
What would have made Near and Distant Neighbors better?
I feel ripped-off after buying this audio book. I didn't know that audible allowed this kind of machine readings
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