Wise Gals

By Nathalia Holt,

Book cover of Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage

Book description

** TO BE READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK FROM 30 JAN 2023 **

'As much le Carre as it is Hidden Figures.' AMARYLLIS FOX, author of Life Undercover

'A sweeping epic of a book [which] rescues five remarkable women from obscurity and finally gives them their…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Wise Gals as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The New York Times writer Gail Collins once wrote, “One of the tricks to being a great historical figure is to leave behind as much information as possible.”

Unfortunately, that means many voices have gone quiet as generations pass. Nathalia uncovers some of their untold stories in this book about the women who helped create the CIA. As she makes clear in her book, these stories were doubly difficult to tell because the women she’s writing about had made their careers out of being able to keep secrets.

But she does a remarkable job at getting to the heart of…

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