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Title details for Rigged by David Shimer - Available

Rigged

America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference

by David Shimer
Kevin R. Free
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
The definitive history of the covert struggle between Russia and America to influence elections, why the threat to American democracy is greater than ever, and what we can do about it. This is "the first book to put the story of Russian interference into a broader context ... Extraordinary and gripping" (The New York Times Book Review)
Russia's interference in 2016 marked only the latest chapter of a hidden and revelatory history. In Rigged, David Shimer tells the sweeping story of covert electoral interference past and present. He exposes decades of secret operations—by the KGB, the CIA, and Vladimir Putin's Russia—to shape electoral outcomes, melding deep historical research with groundbreaking interviews with more than 130 key players, from leading officials in both the Trump and Obama administrations, to CIA and NSA directors, to a former KGB general.
What Americans should make of Russia's attack in 2016 is still hotly debated, even after the Mueller report and years of media coverage. Shimer shows that Putin's operation was, in fact, a continuation of an ongoing struggle, using familiar weapons radically enhanced by new technology. Throughout history and in 2016, both Russian and American operations achieved their greatest success by influencing the way voters think, rather than tampering with actual vote tallies.
Casting aside partisanship and sensationalism, Rigged reveals new details about what Russia achieved in 2016, how the Obama administration responded, and why Putin has also been interfering covertly in elections across the globe in recent years, while American presidents have largely refrained from doing so. Shimer also makes disturbingly clear that this type of intrusion can be used to harm Democrats and Republicans alike. Russia's central aim is to undermine and disrupt our democracy, to the detriment of all Americans.
Understanding 2016 as one battle in a much longer war is essential to understanding the critical threat currently posed to America's electoral sovereignty and how to defend against it. Illuminating how the lessons of the past can be used to protect our democracy in the future, Rigged is an essential book for readers of every political persuasion.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 30, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593339756
      • File size: 313787 KB
      • Duration: 10:53:43

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Kevin Free narrates this timely audiobook forcefully, clearly, and with the gravitas it deserves. He ably guides listeners through the political thickets that author David Shimer's work identifies. Free gives an authoritative tone to the many experts, former officials, and stories the text reveals. The author evenhandedly discloses the "covert election influence" of both the Russians--formerly the KGB, now the FSB--and the CIA, whose operations opposed the Russian-backed candidates in places like Italy (1948) and Chile (1964), two campaigns in which the U.S.'s preferred candidates prevailed. While the United States no longer pursues election meddling, not so the Russians. Putin, a former head of the KGB, sees sowing chaos in democracies as a strategic goal--the presidential election of 2016 being a case in point. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 18, 2020
      Journalist Shimer debuts with a provocative and well-sourced study tracking Russian and U.S. efforts to influence foreign elections from the early 20th century to the present day. Though the history of covert electoral interference began with Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin’s efforts to spread communism in the wake of WWI, Shimer writes, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. “targeted elections aggressively and frequently” during the Cold War. His examples include CIA efforts to keep left-wing candidates out of office in Italy and Chile, and the KGB’s role in ensuring that West German chancellor Willy Brandt survived a 1972 no-confidence vote. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Shimer claims, America stopped its influence campaigns “in all but the most exceptional of circumstances.” Russia, however, has escalated its electoral meddling in the internet age, according to Shimer, and Vladimir Putin’s “digital warriors” waged covert campaigns in 2016 to unseat Montenegro’s pro-NATO leader, put Donald Trump in the White House, and influence the Brexit referendum. Though his prose style is more scholarly than scintillating, Shimer makes excellent use of archival research and interviews with U.S. government insiders and intelligence experts. This incisive treatise lays bare the monumental task of countering foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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