February 1, 2021
Award-winning Stanford professor Daughton's In The Forest of No Joy covers new territory in the brutal history of colonialism by chronicling the construction of the Congo-Oc�an railroad across the Republic of Congo. In New Women in the Old West, Gallagher (How the Post Office Created America) portrays the settling of the American West from the women's perspective, including the stories of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American women. Former Wall Street Journal staffer Hagedorn's Sleeper Agent is George Koval, born in America and taken back to the Soviet Union by his idealistic Russian Jewish parents in the 1930s; he returned later after being recruited by the Red army and became the only Soviet military spy with security clearances for the Manhattan project (40,000-copy first printing). In Checkmate in Berlin, best-selling author Milton (Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die) chronicles the Allies' post-World War II division of Germany and especially Berlin and the tensions that resulted (40,000-copy first printing). A New York Times best-selling novelist, Sohn turns to nonfiction with The Man Who Hated Women, an account of anti-vice activist and U.S. Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock and the restrictive Comstock Law. In The Verge, Wyman, whose Tides of History podcast boasts 600,000 subscribers, looks at the crucial impact of Europe's Reformation/Renaissance era (50,000-copy first printing).
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May 3, 2021
Journalist Hagedorn (The Invisible Soldiers) unearths the little-known story of Soviet spy George Koval (1913–2006) in this doggedly researched account. Posthumously awarded Russia’s highest civilian honor, Koval flew so far under the radar that Vladimir Putin hadn’t heard of him before attending a Moscow exhibition on Cold War–era spies in 2006. Culling FBI reports, school yearbooks, and immigration forms, Hagedorn details Koval’s early life in Sioux City, Iowa, where he was born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who, in the face of rising American anti-Semitism in the 1930s, returned to their native country to join a collective farm in the Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia’s Far East. After WWII began, Koval, who had been pursuing a chemistry degree, was recruited by military intelligence and sent back to the U.S. in 1940 as a spy. He infiltrated Manhattan Project facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Dayton, Ohio, supplying his handlers with classified information about the production of enriched uranium, plutonium, and polonium. After fleeing the U.S. in 1948, Koval became a teacher at the Mendeleev Institute in Moscow; Hagedorn suggests that embarrassment over his escape led the FBI to keep his case quiet. Enlivened by its brisk pace and lucid scientific details, this is a rewarding introduction to a noteworthy episode in the history of Soviet espionage.
May 15, 2021
At the time, nobody suspected a Soviet spy could be deeply embedded in the Manhattan Project, which led to America's creation of the atomic bomb. But as Hagedorn (The Invisible Soldiers, 2014) writes in her compelling history: "Sometimes the clues that should have been warnings are lost in a blur, only to be seen in hindsight." George Koval was born in Iowa in 1913 to Russian Jewish parents. Years later, he relocated to the Soviet Union, where, as a skilled chemist, he was recruited by the military. Koval returned to the U.S., was drafted, and during WWII had full access to vital, top-secret information that directly led to a functioning atomic bomb. After the war, Koval escaped from the U.S. undetected, and in 1949, Soviet scientists created their own nuclear weapon. Throughout this narrative, readers should expect many unanswered questions since key information on Koval remains inaccessible. Nevertheless, Hagedorn's well-researched account employs a host of primary and secondary sources to convincingly connect the dots between Koval, the Soviet spy network, and the creation of the atomic bomb.
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June 1, 2021
The biography of a Soviet spy whose story may be new even to history buffs. The son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant who settled in Iowa, George Koval (1913-2006) grew up in a middle-class family, performed brilliantly in high school, graduated at age 15, and enrolled in the University of Iowa to study engineering. Unlike most American Jews, Koval's parents welcomed the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution, and by the time the Depression overwhelmed the nation, George was a dedicated communist. In 1932, George and his family immigrated to the Soviet Union, where he entered the elite Mendeleev Institute in Moscow to study chemistry. His talents caught the attention of Soviet army intelligence, which recruited him and sent him back to America, where he enrolled at Columbia University. As accomplished as he had been in Moscow, Koval impressed the army after being drafted in 1943 and found himself part of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he kept Moscow informed. He did the same after his transfer in 1945 to Dayton, Ohio, where polonium was assembled into the triggers essential to nuclear explosions. In an intriguing narrative, journalist Hagedorn emphasizes that Dayton was as important as Oak Ridge and Los Alamos in the creation of the atomic bomb. After the war, Koval returned to New York. Although he no longer engaged in weapons research, the Cold War had begun, and defections of Soviet agents had exposed several of Koval's contacts. Still off the official radar, he returned to Russia in 1948. The final 50 pages of the book are the most fascinating. Despite Soviet reports extolling Koval's work, he received no rewards. Unable to find work, he wrote a pleading letter to the director of Soviet intelligence. The result was a modest teaching position at the Mendeleev Institute, from which he retired after 35 years on a pension so meager that he applied (unsuccessfully) for U.S. Social Security benefits in 1999. Learning this and fearing bad publicity, Russian intelligence raised his pension. An eye-opening account of perhaps the Soviet Union's most successful sleeper agent.
COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
July 1, 2021
Journalist and author Hagedorn (Beyond the River; Savage Peace) has written another fast-paced historical account with themes of intrigue and prejudice. Here, she focuses on George Koval (1913-2006), born in the United States to a Russian Jewish family. Amidst virulent antisemitism, the family returned to Russia, and Koval studied chemistry in Moscow as a Soviet citizen. After the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) engaged and trained him, Koval returned to the United States in 1940 and became a U.S. army draftee and an agent who would "sleep" under cover until his activation by the Soviet Union. The reclusive Koval was the only Soviet military spy with security clearance on the Manhattan Project (he tendered information that accelerated the 1949 detonation of the Soviet A-bomb), but he lacked the notoriety of high-profile spies like Klaus Fuchs; he preferred to keep details of his life hidden. Hagedorn effectively tells how Koval returned to the Soviet Union in 1948 to live quietly and eventually receive posthumous recognition. This expertly researched, psychologically thrilling history makes good use of available primary sources, such as FBI reports, letters, and interviews, as well as secondary literature. VERDICT Engaging narrative nonfiction that will thrill readers who are drawn to works by Ben Macintyre and Kate Moore.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
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