Spencer Willardson's Reviews > The Strategy of Subversion

This book is old and out of print, but very awesome. The premise of the book is to outline the use of covert actions by states. The central premise of the book is that the use of covert actions by sates is not the panacea that was promised in the post WWII and early Cold War era.

Blackstock uses many examples, starting from 19th century Europe and through the Bay of Pigs and support to regimes in Vietnam and the Middle East. I have been working on a long-term project on covert action, and this book is useful in terms of background and theory development. I am most surprised by the fact that this book didn't become more foundational, but was lost history as it were.

There are so many good ideas that are simply lost.