-
The Puzzle Palace
- Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 20 hrs and 24 mins
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Publisher's summary
In this remarkable tour de force of investigative reporting, James Bamford exposes the inner workings of America's largest, most secretive, and arguably most intrusive intelligence agency. The NSA has long eluded public scrutiny, but The Puzzle Palace penetrates its vast network of power and unmasks the people who control it, often with shocking disregard for the law. So sensitive was the information uncovered that the agency twice attempted to suppress the book, threatened the author with prosecution, and even raided one of the libraries he used.
This is a brilliant account of the use and abuse of technological espionage.
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- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
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Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
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The Imagineers of War
- The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World
- By: Sharon Weinberger
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly 60 years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future". Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology.
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Blandly written story about DARPA politics
- By Syed on 04-18-17
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A Matter of Honor
- Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest for Justice
- By: Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Japanese onslaught on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, devastated Americans and precipitated entry into World War II. In the aftermath, Admiral Husband Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, was relieved of command, accused of negligence and dereliction of duty, and publicly disgraced. But the admiral defended his actions through eight investigations and for the rest of his long life. The evidence against him was less than solid.
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Great information, Reads like a textbook.
- By UncleHammy on 12-13-16
By: Anthony Summers, and others
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Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Richard Rhodes
- Length: 6 hrs
- Abridged
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Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.
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Abridged??
- By Delano on 04-17-13
By: Richard Rhodes
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By JFanson on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
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Scientia Est Potentia/Knowledge is Power
- By Cynthia on 10-08-15
By: Annie Jacobsen
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Circle of Treason
- CIA Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed
- By: Sandra V. Grimes, Jeanne Vertefeuille
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
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The hunt for a mole
- By Jean on 01-15-14
By: Sandra V. Grimes, and others
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Pay Any Price
- Greed, Power, and Endless War
- By: James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses - and until this audiobook, it has worked very hard to cover them up.
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If you care about our liberties, read this book.
- By John L. Moncrief on 11-02-14
By: James Risen
What listeners say about The Puzzle Palace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James L
- 05-30-20
excellent history lesson on an important Intel ent
Book has some age to it, but the history won't change much. Excellent recounting of a highly secretive intelligence agency
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- Chris C
- 05-03-22
Still relevant today
It is mind blowing to think that this was put out in 1982 and topics discussed in the book are still relevant nearly 40 years later. The Narrator is OK, I needed to keep coming back to the book periodically in order to finish the book.
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- oliverVT
- 08-07-21
Complete and Authoritative
In depth presentation of the NSA up to 1982, the date of publication. It's almost as though the reader is present at historic milestones of the NSA.
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- Bob Prot
- 02-07-23
Fascinating and a great intro into the authors multiple books on the subject.
I got this because I wanted to read his last book SoyFail which covers a host of some famous and some not so famous HUMNIT and a host of other failures. From Aldrich Ames to Asian and Cuban spy’s he covers a whole host of them. Some of these stories were swallowed up by large events like 911. I wonder if he covers the same ground Peter Lance covered about Ali Mohamed in his work Triple Cross. He has about 4 books before his last. I’ve enjoyed this one immensely and I can’t wait to get through all his other books.
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- E. M.
- 12-05-18
Great NSA genesis - but watch the publication date
This book is an excellent telling of the genesis of the NSA and how they got to be so pervasive and secretive. Many struggles they have encountered around legality and ethics are documented in this detailed history, and it seems many of these issues are still faced daily today. But keep in mind this book was published in 1982 - so the story telling ends abruptly before the end of the cold war and doesn't cover anything more modern than a Cray 1 supercomputer. Your 5 year old iPhone 4 had more processing power than what the NSA had to work with at the time. Bamford states that the NSA's goal is to stay 5-years ahead of the state-of-the-art commercially available computing power - so I'd really like to read an updated version of this expose with a look at their current capabilities.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Sean
- 05-02-23
40 years later and still relevant.
The only thing that has changed is the speed of the computers and the level of public apathy have both gone WAY up.
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- scott klandl
- 02-19-24
Dullest spy novel ever
If you enjoy reading “terms of use” agreements you will love this extremely dry book, but I suggest looking elsewhere if your looking to learn any of interest
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