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227 reviews for:
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Elyse Graham
3.96 AVERAGE
227 reviews for:
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Elyse Graham
3.96 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
As a history buff and wannabe scholar, I was intrigued by the premise of this book and really enjoyed it. Quiet academic types who are thorough, critical thinkers were great intelligence gatherers for a burgeoning intelligence operation for the US during WWII. Graham focuses on a few “main” characters to weave the pieces together, but also addressed more generally the impact that professors and librarians had on the war effort. Some of the pithy sayings got a bit repetitive at times (“you can have a weapon or a cover, but not both”), but overall a quick, engaging read to add to the repertoire of WWII history books.
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
One of the most important books of our time. Considering what the United States is currently going through. The same ideological and loyalty purges - the same thing that Germany went through. Germany, lost a World War, an atomic bomb, and being the preeminent scientific country in the world for those two things. There is more that also caused them to the lose the war but it's the racial purity, the dismissal of women, and general shortsightedness that actually lost them those people that made them diverse and strong.
History repeats itself and this book answers the question, what use is a humanities degree? Considering that our CIA was not built from scientists or politicians but by those people (women, Black, Jewish) who were scholars and librarians in the very field that is so often derided today. This book tells the story that Art History is so much more than it seems and that the best spies are not the rugged good looking military commanders but are the bookworms, and librarians.
James Bond would have been a better spy if he was not a Commander in the Royal Navy but maybe if he was a Cambridge graduate who excelled in the Classics.
History repeats itself and this book answers the question, what use is a humanities degree? Considering that our CIA was not built from scientists or politicians but by those people (women, Black, Jewish) who were scholars and librarians in the very field that is so often derided today. This book tells the story that Art History is so much more than it seems and that the best spies are not the rugged good looking military commanders but are the bookworms, and librarians.
James Bond would have been a better spy if he was not a Commander in the Royal Navy but maybe if he was a Cambridge graduate who excelled in the Classics.
informative
slow-paced