A provocative, highly entertaining, meticulously crafted book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tim Weiner explores the centuries-old history of the FBI and can rightly be considered a definitive encyclopedia of the activities of this covert US intelligence service. Based on dossiers that have been declassified in recent years, the author presents the founding father of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, in the true light. Describes how the agent network was created and improved. How Hoover undertook almost unimaginable tasks: spying on the leaders of the Soviet Union and China during the darkest period of the Cold War, controlling coups against democratically elected foreign leaders, skillfully destabilizing the position of the presidents of the United States. How he waged a political war and managed state affairs for national security purposes, often acting to the detriment of morality. Analyzing the efforts of FBI leaders in the war against terrorists, spies, anarchists and assassins, Tim Weiner raises an important moral question about whether society is ready to give up guarantees of freedom, to allow intelligence agents to illegally penetrate the privacy of citizens for the sake of promises of security.