Social Intelligence Science

Every one of our thoughts, actions, moods and decisions is shaped by a whole array of factors, most of which we don't pay any attention to. From culture, time and language to genetics, technology and the microorganisms living inside us—even our own unconscious routines and habits—it's clear that we aren't always in the driving seat. The good news is that by better understanding the external and internal forces at work, we can minimise their impact on our lives.

Robert Baer was known inside the CIA as perhaps the best operative working the Middle East. Dana was originally tasked for Agency background checks, but always wanted more. When Bob and Dayna met on a mission in Sarajevo, it wasn’t love at first sight. But there was something there, a spark. And as the danger escalated and their affection for each other grew, they realized it was time to leave “the Company,” to somehow rediscover the people they’d once been. As worldly as they both were, the couple didn’t realize at first that turning in their Agency ID cards would not be enough to put their covert past behind.

In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the CIA's involvement in a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. In 1983, while Soviet- backed Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski worked to crush a budding opposition movement through martial law, the CIA launched a sophisticated intelligence campaign supporting dissident groups. With President Ronald Reagan's support, American funds bankrolled clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, and information warfare. This initiative, code-named QRHELPFUL, proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland.

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of "The Cambridge Spies" - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Ron Suskind takes you deep inside America's real battles with violent, unrelenting terrorists, a game of kill-or-be-killed, from the Oval Office to the streets of Karachi.

Students and enthusiasts of American history are familiar with the Revolutionary War spies Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold, but few studies have closely examined the wider intelligence efforts that enabled the colonies to gain their independence. Spies, Patriots, and Traitors provides readers with a fascinating, well-documented, and highly readable account of American intelligence activities during the era of the Revolutionary War, from 1765 to 1783.

In 1973, a gunman fired five shots into Colonel Joe Alon, a kind, unassuming Israeli Air Force pilot. As it turned out, Alon wasn't just a pilot and family man - he was a high-ranking Israeli military official and hero of the Israeli Air Force. The assassin was never found and the case was closed. As a counterterrorism special agent, Fred Burton reopened the case and pursued the killer.

In today's technological society, with an unprecedented amount of information at our fingertips, learning plays a more central role than ever. In How We Learn, Stanislas Dehaene decodes its biological mechanisms, delving into the neuronal, synaptic and molecular processes taking place in the brain. He explains why youth is such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but also assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood, and that we can enhance our learning and memory at any age.

Uncover everything you need to know about "deepfakes" and what could become the biggest information and communications meltdown in world history.

As far as the public knew, Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) did not exist. After the defeat of the French Army and Britain's retreat from the Continent in June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the top-secret espionage operation to "set Europe ablaze". Of the many brave men and women conscripted, two Anglo-American recruits, the Starr brothers, stood out to become legendary figures to the guerillas, assassins, and saboteurs they led.

Feeling overwhelmed by stress, negativity, or chaos? It's time to take control of your mind and rediscover your inner strength! Stoicism for Beginners: A Complete Collection of Daily Stoic Wisdom is your ultimate guide to calm, clarity, and confidence—through every twist and turn life may bring.

In The Pursuit of Dominance, Christopher J. Fettweis examines the grand strategy of previous superpowers to see how they maintained, or failed to maintain, their status. Over the course of six cases, from Ancient Rome to the British Empire, he seeks guidance from the past for present US policymakers. Like the United States, the examples Fettweis uses were the world's strongest powers at particularly moments in time, and they were hoping to stay that way. Rather than focusing on those powers' rise or how they ruled, however, Fettweis looks at how they sought to maintain their power.

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination.

A CIA station chief, later Jordan's lawyer in Washington, reveals the secret history of a lost peace.

Jack O'Connell possessed an uncanny ability to be at the center of things. On his arrival in Jordan in 1958, he unraveled a coup aimed at the young King Hussein, who would become America's most reliable Middle East ally. Over time, their bond of trust and friendship deepened. His narrative contains secrets that will revise our understanding of the Middle East.

After the fall of France in the mid-1940s, Adolf Hitler faced a British Empire that refused to negotiate for peace. With total war looming, he ordered the Abwehr, Germany's defense and intelligence organization, to carry out Operation Lena - a program to place information-gathering spies within Britain. Quickly, a network of secret agents spread within the United Kingdom and across the British Empire. The stunning truth, though, was that every last one of these German spies had been captured and turned by the British.

Keith Jeffery’s fascinating and revealing account draws on a wealth of archival materials never before seen by any outsider to unveil the inner workings of the world’s first spy agency. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—or MI6—was born a century ago amid rising fears of foreign military powers, especially Germany. The next 40 years saw MI6 taking an increasingly important—and, until now, largely hidden—role in shaping the history of Europe and the world.

In this writing I will demonstrate that the scriptures emphatically teach a contingent of angels called “Holy Watchers” decided to have offspring with human women and knowingly commit this great abomination of sin toward the Most High. The Sons of God and the Divine Council mentioned in the Bible are these same “Holy Watchers” (a position of angelic authority) mentioned in Enoch and Jasher and in Genesis 6 that not only conceived children with human women but also gave mankind knowledge, technologies, and weapons.

Globalization means that we need to be prepared to interact with people from a wide range of cultures. But it's impossible to learn the particular customs and traits of every culture you might regularly come into contact with. Cultural Intelligence teaches techniques that will allow you to function effectively in any culture. Instead of providing a laundry list of culturally specific dos and don'ts, Thomas and Inkson show how to pay attention in a mindful and creative way to cues in cross-cultural situations.

In this courageous and unflinching book, award-winning journalist Jessikka Aro interweaves her own dramatic story as a target of Russian social media propaganda with accounts from many internationally known critics of the Kremlin, who share their own stories of being targeted by Russia’s multifaceted cyber warfare campaigns.