Michael Evans
File Bodies
The Snowden Operation: Inside the West’s Greatest Intelligence Disaster
By Edward Lucas
Kindle Single 76pp £0.99 order from our bookshop
The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man
By Luke Harding
Guardian Books/Faber & Faber 346pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State
By Glenn Greenwald
Hamish Hamilton 259pp £20 order from our bookshop
The phenomenon that is Edward Snowden seems to attract just two schools of thought: either he is a traitor to his country and to his employers or he is a whistleblower worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. His deeds have caused outrage and praise alike. Those who believe he has done today’s world a service by exposing America’s global snooping on private communications seem rarely to pause to consider what damage he may have done, while those who criticise his perceived betrayal want nothing less than a public hanging and don’t want to contemplate the Big Brother surveillance system that he uncovered as a privileged member of America’s huge intelligence community.
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A small country "may not have aircraft carriers or regiments of tanks. But guided by an unerring moral compass, it can triumph over even the most fearsomely armed opponent." https://twitter.com/WiggishHistory/status/1278425792385613835
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Richard Vinen is unpersuaded by 'The Churchill Myths'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/blood-toil-tears-brexit
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Nigel Andrew on three contrasting books about birds by @RSmythFreelance, @JenGAckerman & @JonathanSlaght.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-gyrfalcon