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WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy Paperback – Bargain Price, February 15, 2011
| David Leigh (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPublicAffairs
- Publication dateFebruary 15, 2011
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Mediaite, February 5, 2011
“While [The Guardian’s] rendition of experience does not fail to leave out the requisite depiction of Assange as overbearing and paranoid, the overall tone of the story, rather than vengeful, is surprisingly self-effacing.”
“You can imagine, then, how delighted I was to receive a copy of the Guardian’s new crash-published Wikileaks book and discover that it was all the things I wanted from the Times’ book. And more… Indeed, while ‘Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy’ is many things – a thriller, a story of international diplomacy, a tale of greed and ambition and double-crosses; a comedy, a tragedy – above all it’s a manifesto for the future of professional journalism…If Wikileaks is this generation’s Watergate, then ‘Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy’ might well prove to be its All The President’s Men; educating a whole new generation of would-be reporters on the power and importance of the professional press.” MacLean’s, March 1, 2011“Leigh’s portrait of the WikiLeaks founder is at once affectionate and damning—a dry-eyed examination of the way celebrity can pervert a burgeoning ego.”
Eurasian Review, February 4, 2011 “The novelistic lens serves an important purpose by painting a richer, more three-dimensional portrait of the people behind WikiLeaks and the controversies in which they became embroiled.”
Kaietur News, March 6, 2011“Fantastic… a complicated story of the relationship between a man who is a fanatical political activist (Assange) with no formal journalistic training and no background in the media, and a group of esteemed, famous professional media practitioners.” Irish Independent, March 19, 2011 “In unraveling the murky details, the book has also provided a rip-roaring narrative of secrets, tantrums, technological wizardry, personal betrayal and vengeance.”
The American Prospect, June, 2011
“The best overview of the story as it stood in early 2011 is WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy…This is a gripping, spy-novel-paced recounting of how WikiLeaks, the Guardian, and the other major organizations managed a first-of-its-kind global news-breaking collaboration.”
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Product details
- ASIN : B0057D9LJG
- Publisher : PublicAffairs (February 15, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- Item Weight : 12 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

In 2007 I arrived in Moscow with my wife and young family. I was a career foreign correspondent working for the British newspaper The Guardian. My previous postings were to Delhi and Berlin. I had chronicled George Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reported from the frontline and dodged incoming mortar fire. Surely Russia would be easy? Not quite, it turned out.
Within a few months we found ourselves in a badly written spy novel. Unpromising young men followed me around the icy streets. Secret agents broke into our apartment, on one occasion opening the window next to our six-year-old son's bed. We lived on the tenth floor. The UK embassy explained that these ghostly visitors worked for the FSB. This was the main successor agency to the KGB. Its former boss was Vladimir Putin, at this point Russia's president.
I wrote about these experiences in a 2011 memoir, Mafia State (published in the US as Expelled). They fuelled much of my subsequent work as a non-fiction writer. Why had Putin's undercover agents picked on me? I was never entirely sure. My attempts to unravel the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko may have played a part and certainly contributed to the Kremlin's decision to deport me from Russia, in the first case of its kind since the Cold War.
In London, I followed a public inquiry into Litvinenko's teapot assassination. It concluded Putin "probably" approved the operation using radioactive polonium. My book about the case, A Very Expensive Poison, is a dramatic account of one of this century's most lurid crimes. The playwright Lucy Prebble adapted it into an award-winning stage play at the Old Vic theatre in London; it was shortlisted for the 2017 Crime Writers' Association Non-fiction Dagger Prize.
My next book sought to answer a question which haunts us still: what does Vladimir Putin have on the US president Donald Trump? The dossier by the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele says Putin's spies secretly filmed Trump in a Moscow hotel room. The claim always struck me as plausible; the FSB specialises in covert recordings and once left a sex manual by our marital bed. "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money and How Russia helped Trump Win" was a number one New York Times best-seller.
Like its predecessors, my new book Shadow State is a real-life thriller. The story is incredible but true. Two Russian colonels arrive in Salisbury on a mission to murder a renegade colleague, Sergei Skripal. Shadow State further describes the myriad ways in which the Kremlin is seeking to subvert our democracy and overwhelm our politics, via cyber-hacking, disinformation, and corruption. It is - I hope - essential reading for anyone seeking to understand our dark times and how our societies have become so divided.
I have also written books on Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and the Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken. The director Oliver Stone made The Snowden Files into a biopic, Snowden; Dreamworks adapted my book WikiLeaks - written with David Leigh - into The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Further TV projects are forthcoming.

David Leigh is an award-winning British journalist and author living and working out of Miami. He is a member of the UK Crime Writers Association. Before moving to Florida to work as Senior News Director for a celebrated news and photographic agency, Leigh worked for British newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, where during his 12-year tenure he worked as a Senior Reporter, News Editor and Foreign Editor covering news stories across the world. He then spent three years as Assistant Editor (Head of News) at the Daily Express, where he oversaw coverage of stories including the 9/11 terrorist atrocities, the Second Gulf War, and the fall of Saddam Hussein. His latest book, The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe is the inspiration for an upcoming four-part ITV dramatisation by acclaimed screen writer Chris Lang (Unforgotten/Innocent).
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1. FOX NEWS wants Assange assassinated.
2. Senator Lieberman wants Assange terminated.
3. Hillary Clinton would like Assange to be erased.
4. But, then, a few months after the massive leak, America learns that the leaks actually increased the popularity of the USA among the regular people in the Middle-East.
5. Yes, the clear, colorful descriptions of criminal elements in Russia, Iraq and Afghanistan really made citizens of these countries both angry at their leaders and happier about the USA.
6. So, the USA backed off...a little.
7. But, today, Manning is still locked up and Assange can't go out and play.
8. Obama's State Department seems aware and useful.
9. But, Obama and the USA military remain angry cretins.
10. We learn, basically, that leaks can help the world.
11. But, pity the poor leakers.
12. They must be punished and tortured and kept in solitary and hurt and criticized and deported or jailed or killed or driven insane.
13. Nice country you've made, Mr. President.
14. And, by the way, keep up the drone assassinations of brown people. These killings are really getting you support among the innocent victims.
15. Hope you bring the drones to the USA ghettos and barrios soon. I know you want to.
Larry Rochelle, Author of OCCUPY FEARRINGTON, available on AMAZON Kindle.
It doesn't make the story itself bad, it is a good story with a lot of cruft.
But the story itself it's about Wikileaks, from its inception to the release of the so called Cablegate -- the release of several diplomatic cables. Actually, Wikileaks is just the background story here; the whole action is more about how The Guardian dealt with Assange and the other publishing partners than Wikileaks itself.
It's not a bad story, even with the abundance of words. There are a lot of forgotten elements -- like the story behind Manning and his leaking -- which tend to be completely ignored at this point. But, again, there are too many unnecessary words that go nowhere. Prepare to get annoyed about the continuous mention of the some cable over and over again -- and see the said cable in its complete form in the end.
(Why I'm mentioning this? 'Cause the book makes a huge deal of how several cables affected international politics, but keep mentioning the same three cables over and over again. I mean, if several where that important, why are the same three mentioned so many times?)
It is an analysis of Assange his motivations and the importance of his materials. They were the ones that analysed the Bradley Manning cables and published articles putting them in perspective. With out the Guardian reporters probably Assange would not have the entre on to the World's stage that happened. The book contains an appendix of some of the more important cables.
The book is not a character assassination. It does put the whole matter into perspective from the Guardians point of view. It is worth reading.
However the story is not over. There is the trial of Bradley Manning and the possibility Assange may be indicted or unindicted as a co-conspiritor. The matter in Sweden has also not run its course. Also the US has not officially charged Assange with a crime and has not sought his extradition from either the United Kingdom or possibly Sweden in the future.
Why it would be easier to extradite him from Sweden than the UK is not explained. It may be that any indictment needs Bradley Manning to testify he was a conspiritor because publication alone might not be a crime. Also is posting on the internet entitled to the 1st Amendment rights of publishers and reporters? Is the Huffington Post entiled to the same rights as the NY Times? I gave the book four stars because because of the objectivity problem.








