This is a very interesting book covering both foreign countries stealing intellectual property and recruiting spies from schools, and US agencies also looking to recruit students and professors. At times the book was a bit hard to follow as it seemed to jump from thread to thread without any warning. Also, for a book this size with such an impressive list of references, I expected more evidence of wrongdoing. The book really only covers a few cases (sometimes in too much unnecessary depth), and has failed to convince me that this is a huge problem. ( )

Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America’s Universities by Daniel Golden is a non-fiction book which reveals how academia has become the front-line for spy games among nations. Mr. Golden is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

I am a sucker for good espionage books, ever since I could read I always enjoyed the game of shadows countries play, maybe because I lack the nerves of steel required to participate. When I saw Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America’s Universities by Daniel Golden I knew this book would be right up my alley.

When I saw the author’s name, I looked him up because it sounded familiar and quickly realized that I enjoyed Mr. Golden’s articles previously. The book did not disappoint as it is written in the same factual, crisp, and entertaining manner. Mr. Golden just doesn’t lay out facts and figures, but does his best to tell a coherent story that can be found within those dry statistics.

The author tries to understand why, and how, intelligence services around the world are targeting American higher education, and the implications from those actions. Mr. Cohen takes a few select cases, researches them, and write a comprehensive narrative for the reader.

I could not believe that some schools take federal grants and do not bother to secure the classified work they are doing on the government’s behalf. To me, that is astounding and irresponsible by bot the school and the government. It’s especially egregious since both parties are pretty much aware that spying in academia is actively happening.

The book has several interesting anecdotes, some of which are very compelling. I might disagree with some of the author’s assessments in the book (not that I’m any kind of an expert, just disagrees my world view), but isn’t those exactly the books which we should all read?

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com ( )

As a child of the 1960s and a college student in the 1980s, I'm used to a more open view of academia - and the distance between the intelligence community and universities. But the reality is that except for a relatively short time (that I happened to fall in), universities and their faculty worked pretty closely with those trying to gather intelligence or prevent other nations from doing that. Danial Golden's Spy Schools is a well-researched account of some specific instance of both sides: intelligence gathering, in our schools by other nations, and in foreign countries by our side.

Golden is a journalist, and the writing shows his journalistic roots. While it's a good book, it often comes across as a set of interconnected news articles rather than a single work, and this detracts from the work. On the other hand, it's an important subject, and Spy Schools is worth a look as we hear more and more about issues like US universities expanding into other countries. ( )

I applaud the author of this book for the painstaking amounts of research that went into it. It was very interesting to read about the various attempts of countries and spy agencies to use our education system to recruit spies. I will say however, that I feel like the overall narrative suffered a bit under the weight of all that research. That said, it was still an enjoyable read and made me wonder why I wasn't recruited to be a spy during my formative years. ( )