Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war

At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and ...