Abuse of Power: How Cold War Surveillance and Secrecy Policy Shaped the Response to 9/11 - Softcover

Theoharis, Athan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439906653 ISBN 13: 9781439906651

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2011

Synopsis

An argument that domestic surveillance erodes civil liberties and fails to protect the country

About this title

Review:

"Theoharis has a long history of criticizing government security programs. No scholar has greater authority or a corpus of scholarship that is more highly respected. Abuse of Power is excellent, and it will immediately command attention—even from those who are only peripherally interested in the subject of surveillance and secrecy. What is distinctive and original about this book is that Theoharis so superbly historicizes the 9/11 response. His argument, essentially, is that the policies from the Roosevelt years were not only illegal but also ineffective in terms of preserving security. Thus, it is not surprising that they did not prevent 9/11."
—Richard Immerman, author of Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz

From the Author:

Athan Theoharis is Emeritus Professor of History at Marquette University and author of twenty books, including The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition and Chasing Spies: How the FBI Failed in Counterintelligence But Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1439906653
• ISBN 13: 9781439906651
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232