Security Science

Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in Northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15, 2014, when Nadia was just 21 years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves.

CNN’s chief national security correspondent reveals the invisible fronts of 21st-century warfare and identifies the ongoing battles being waged - often without the public’s full knowledge - from disinformation campaigns to advanced satellite weaponry.

When it comes to the gun control debate, there are two kinds of data: data that's accurate and data that left-wing billionaires, politicians, and media want you to believe is accurate. In The War on Guns, economist and gun rights advocate John Lott turns a skeptical eye to well-funded antigun studies and stories that perpetuate false statistics to frighten Americans into giving up their guns.

Beginning in Africa and ending in Europe, Incarceration Nations is a first-person odyssey through the prison systems of the world. Baz Dreisinger, a professor, a journalist, and the founder of the Prison-to-College Pipeline, looks into the human stories of incarcerated men and women and those who imprison them, creating a jarring, poignant view of a world to which most are denied access.

In Chatter, Patrick Radden Keefe investigates the international eavesdropping alliance known as Echelon, sorting facts from conspiracy theories to determine just how much privacy Americans unknowingly sacrifice in the name of greater security.

The ascension of Vladimir Putin - a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB - to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years - as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him - Putin has grown into not only a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.

Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: Defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off-course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives.

Widely heralded on publication as a “must-read” (Military Review) and “important window on America’s battle with al-Qaeda” (Washington Post), Ali Soufan’s revelatory account of the war on terror as seen from its front lines changed the way we understand al-Qaeda and how the United States prosecuted the war — and led to hard questions being asked of our leaders.

In 1789, James Madison and James Monroe ran against each other for Congress-the only time that two future presidents have contested a congressional seat. But what was at stake, as author Chris DeRose reveals in Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights, and the Election That Saved a Nation, was more than personal ambition. This was a race that determined the future of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the very definition of the United States of America.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9-11 Commission, was created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002. This independent, bipartisan commission had the task of producing a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the attack, including preparedness and immediate response, and providing recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell of Halifax was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. But as MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6. Throughout this, a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress Bell’s alerts. Nevertheless, agent A12’s intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways that are only now being revealed.

Based on news reports, you might think there's a major cybersecurity threat every four to five months. In reality, there's a cybersecurity attack happening every minute of every day. In Cyber Crisis, Eric Cole gives listeners a clear-eyed picture of the information war raging in cyberspace. Drawing on 30 years of experience, Cole offers practical, actionable advice that even those with little technical background can implement, including steps to take on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to protect their businesses and themselves.

This book provides a complete overview of the American Founders' political theory, covering natural rights, natural law, state of nature, social compact, consent, and the policy implications of these ideas. The book is intended as a response to the current scholarly consensus, which holds that the Founders' political thought is best understood as an amalgam of liberalism, republicanism, and perhaps other traditions.

From 2016 to 2020, Jacob Helberg led Google’s global internal product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy.

In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use - not drugs themselves - have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism. Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes.

In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the 21st century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anti-colonial struggle would continue. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

A provocative, lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first Black president and first Black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (

Vanity Fair).

One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government's sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea's information underground.

Through the last 150 years of American history—from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics—Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.

lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.