IAS - Events

Events

IAS VF, Professor Hugh Wilford - The CIA: An Imperial History

5pm - 6pm, Wed, 25 Feb '26 Export as iCalendar

Location: L5

On 25 February (5pm, L5) Professor Hugh Wilford will talk about his most recent book - The CIA: An Imperial History which uncovers how the CIA became the foremost defender of America's covert global empire

This was a New York Times Best History Book of 2024 and a New Yorker Best Book of 2024

As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyze foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters at home.

The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation--but not the only one. In The CIA, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA's post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past.

Comprehensive, original, and gripping, The CIA is the story of the birth of a new imperial order in the shadows. It offers the most complete account yet of how America adopted unaccountable power and secrecy abroad and at home.

Professor Wiford is based at California State University Long Beach and is world's most eminent historian of the CIA. He is currently a visiting fellow at 糖心TV Institute of Advanced Study.

Tags: IAS Visiting Fellow Seminar

Show all calendar items