Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Mailer, Norman.  Harlot’s Ghost.  New York: Random, 1991. Mailer reportedly spent seven years writing this massive novel which treats the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency from the Berlin Airlift to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What is more surprising than the book’s size is that, despite its size,…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
MacInnes, Helen.  Assignment in Brittany.  Boston: Little, Brown, 1942. Among authors in the espionage category, MacInnes stands out for her lack of cynicism and for her faith in the essential decency of individuals who are willing to expose themselves to hazard for the sake of a good cause.  This sensibility…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Aaron Barlow’s post on how our standardized testing is starting to suggest parallels to the civil service exams in Imperial China stuck a chord with me. So here is a post that is a tangent to his post, but it’s possible that the topic may be of as much interest…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Littell, Robert.  The Amateur.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. A commercial and critical success that solidified Littell’s reputation as a novelist, The Amateur focuses on Charles Heller, a C.I.A. cryptologist whose fiancee is killed by West German terrorists.  Intent on avenging her death, Heller tries to arrange for special…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Latham, Aaron.  Orchids for Mother.  New York: Little, Brown, 1977. Aaron Latham has written seven books, only two of them novels.  Of the two novels, only one can be categorized in the espionage genre.  Nonetheless, Orchids for Mother stands as one of the major American contributions to the genre. The…