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  • Published: 15 January 2009
  • ISBN: 9781400079780
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $34.99

Nation of Secrets

The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life



Award winning journalist Ted Gup exposes how and why our most important institutions increasingly keep secrets from the very people they are supposed to serve.Drawing on his decades as an investigative reporter, Ted Gup argues that a preoccupation with secrets has undermined the very values--security, patriotism, and privacy--in whose name secrecy is so often invoked. He explores the blatant exploitation of privacy and confidentiality in academia, business, and the courts, and concludes that in case after case, these principles have been twisted to allow the emergence of a shadow system of justice, unaccountable to the public. Nation of Secrets not only sounds the alarm to warn against an unethical way of life, but calls for the preservation of our democracy as we know it.

  • Published: 15 January 2009
  • ISBN: 9781400079780
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $34.99

About the author

Ted Gup

Ted Gup is an investigative reporter who has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and a correspondent at Time magazine. He is the author of The Book of Honor and the recipient of a George Polk Award and a Worth Bingham Prize. A professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University, he lives in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

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Praise for Nation of Secrets

"Makes clear the danger of out-of-control secrecy."--The Plain Dealer

"Nation of Secrets is an eye-opening and very important book." --James Fallows