by James Risen
First published 2017
For forty years, Soviet military cartographers secretly documented the world with stunning precision. From 1950 to 1990, they produced detailed maps of American cities like New York and Washington D.C., recording factory locations, building heights, road dimensions, and bridge weight limits. Their charts captured harbor depths and river channels that only ground operatives could have measured. James Risen reveals how this massive intelligence operation unfolded, examining the techniques Soviet mapmakers used and the spies who gathered information under American noses. The book reproduces over 350 map excerpts that show exactly what the Soviets knew about Western infrastructure. Risen explores how satellite technology and human intelligence combined to create an atlas that could have guided a full-scale invasion.
Genres: history, 20th-century, 21st-century, military-history, espionage, cartography, academic, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, secret-history
Setting: America, New York, Washington D.C.
Period: 1950-1990
272 pages · Kindle Edition · The University of Chicago Press