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

Graham argues that scholars of the humanities contributed to victory in World War II by transforming the practice of intelligence agencies. Scavenging for every piece of relevant information, including apparently arcane books, these academics found clues about what the enemy was up to and guides to the places where landings would take place and battles would be fought. Their training in piecing together large amounts of disparate information allowed them to support both acts of sabotage and large-scale military operations. This is a world of libraries, index cards, and filing cabinets. Employed by the Office of Strategic Services, they worked alongside the United Kingdom’s intelligence agencies. Many stories are packed into this vigorous and engaging book, but at its heart are the Chicago archivist Adele Kibre and, from Yale, the English professor Joseph Curtiss and the historian Sherman Kent, who had an impressive line in profanity. Descriptions of the initial training in the United Kingdom used to turn academics into spies provide fascinating detail on the crafts of information gathering and deception—as well as of sabotage and assassination.