Barton Gellman is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist. Since 2013 he has been a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. During 21 years at the Washington Post he served tours as legal, military, diplomatic, and foreign correspondent. He has taught courses at Princeton on nonfiction writing, investigative reporting and national security secrecy. His bestselling Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a New York Times Best Book of 2008.
One of the Washington Post's 50 best nonfiction books of 2020
One of Christian Science Monitor’s best nonfiction books of
2020
“As gripping as a spy thriller.” —Christian Science Monitor
“Engrossing. . . . Gellman [is] a thorough, exacting reporter . . .
a marvelous narrator for this particular story, as he nimbly guides
us through complex technical arcana and some stubborn ethical
questions. . . . Dark Mirror would be simply pleasurable
to read if the story it told didn’t also happen to be frighteningly
real.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
“Illuminating. . . . Newsworthy. . . . Dark Mirror stands
out from all the other accounts. Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
former Washington Post investigative reporter and author
of Angler, an influential 2008 biography of Dick Cheney, didn’t
just use the Snowden files as sources; he used them as starting
points for deep, labor-intensive reporting.” —The Washington
Post
“Gellman offers the most detailed, comprehensive and balanced take
on the impact of Snowden's 2013 revelations and what they mean
today, as the debate on national security versus individual privacy
keeps evolving. . . . A compelling book.” —NPR
“A fine and deeply considered portrait of the US-dominated
21st-century surveillance state.” —The Guardian
“[A] thoughtful mix of reportage and revelation. . . . a
necessary and deep meditation about how far our online lives can or
indeed should remain completely private.” —Sunday Times (UK)
“Engaging. . . . a well-documented account on the far-reaching
impact of U.S. domestic surveillance and the resulting intrusions
of privacy; highly recommended both for general readers and those
with an interest in national security.” —Library Journal
“Gellman delivers a compelling story while recounting difficult
predicaments and behind-the-scenes events. He takes a deep dive
into the surveillance state while recalling being subjected to
government investigations, legal pressures, and threats from
foreign agencies determined to steal his files. Readers will be
drawn into the conversational style of [Dark Mirror].”
—Booklist
“An eloquent behind-the-scenes account of [Gellman’s] reporting on
NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leak of top-secret U.S.
intelligence documents. . . . Enriching the high-level technical
and legal analysis with a sharp sense of humor, Gellman presents an
exhaustive study of intelligence gathering in the digital age. Even
readers who have followed the Snowden story closely will learn
something new.” —Publishers Weekly
“[A] masterful narrative . . . that deserves its place
alongside All the President's Men, Five Days at
Memorial, Nickel and Dimed, and other classics of the genre. .
. . A riveting, timely book sure to be one of the most significant
of the year.” —Kirkus, starred review
“Partly a thriller about reporting the secrets the US government
hoped to keep, partly a deeper exposé about the vast power the
surveillance state built to pierce Americans' privacy with a few
keystrokes, Dark Mirror is a riveting page-turner that captures the
danger and drama of the most important leak of classified material
in generations. I lived part of this story in real time and am
amazed at how many startling things I learned in these pages.”
—Carol Leonnig, three-time Pulitzer winner and bestselling author
of A Very Stable Genius
“Bart Gellman is that rare combination of a tenacious reporter, a
clear explicator of the most complex subjects, and a first-rate
storyteller, all rolled into one. To say that Dark Mirror is based
on his groundbreaking reporting on the NSA for the Washington Post
is to undersell it: this book is a deep exploration of a
surveillance apparatus of unimaginable magnitude, a chronicle of
Gellman's intense and sometimes fraught relationship with his
enigmatic and controversial source, Edward Snowden, and an
intimate, disarmingly candid reporter's notebook about what it's
like to spend years watching the watchers, and realizing, along the
way, that they are watching you back.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, New
York Times bestselling author of Say Nothing: A True Story of
Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
“Whether you love Edward Snowden or loathe him, Bart Gellman’s new
book is essential reading for anyone who cares about privacy and
national security. Gellman offers a riveting and often surprising
account of his dealings with Snowden, who, for all his seeming
idealism, also misdirected Gellman about some key facts. But
whatever Snowden’s defects, the scope of the NSA global snooping
campaign he revealed is more shocking than ever, as Gellman pieces
together the puzzle. If you want to understand how intelligence
works in the 21st century, Dark Mirror is a must.” —David
Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post and author of The
Paladin
“This is an enthralling tale of how Barton Gellman, one of the
great investigative journalists of our era, worked to understand,
process, and report the greatest and most challenging leaks of all
time. Dark Mirror is a spy-thriller page-turner that
delivers a fresh but complex portrait of Edward Snowden, a
fair-minded but damning critique of America’s global surveillance
behemoth, and a gripping, self-reflective master-class on how to
discern truth in the dark shadows of the intelligence
world.” —Jack Goldsmith, professor, Harvard Law School;
assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel, during the
George W. Bush administration
"Dark Mirror is a riveting narrative of investigative reporting in
the age of surveillance. It is a dramatic, authoritative account
not only of the significance of Edward Snowden’s revelations, but
of what public interest journalism must overcome to inform citizens
about their exposure to our dystopian Internet.” —Steve Coll,
Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate
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