Espionage: Fascinating Stories of Spies and Spying Book

I read this book when I took Eurasian Politics a few years ago. Since then, one of the authors, Alexander Litvinenko, has been poisioned to death - along with a handful of other people who questioned Putin's government. I guess he must have been telling the truth...

Anyways.. the concept behind the book that surprised me at the time was the idea that governments will commit acts of terror in order to build public support for and justify their power grabs and other bullshit.

From Wikipedia:


"Litvinenko tried to publish a book in Russia in which he described Vladimir Putin's rise to power as a coup d'état organised by the FSB. He stated a key element of FSB's strategy was to frighten Russians by bombing apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities. He alleged the bombings were organised by FSB and blamed on Chechen terrorists to legitimise reprisals using military force in Chechnya

On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised. He died three weeks later, becoming a rare victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning under highly suspicious circumstances. The fact that Litvinenko's revelations about alleged FSB misdeeds were followed two years later by his poisoning led to public accusations that the Russian government was behind his death, resulting in worldwide media coverage."