"Marianna Torgovnick argues that we have lived since the end of World War II, under the power of a war complex - a set of repressed ideas and impulses that stems from our unresolved attitudes toward the technological acceleration of mass death. This complex has led to gaps and hesitations in public discourse about atrocities committed during war itself. And it remains an enduring wartime consciousness, one most recently animated on September 11, 2001."...

"This book explores the fascinating influence of intelligence work during World War II on spy fiction, as well as the important roles many spy novelists played during the war and the sustained influence of spy fiction on intelligence operations after World War II and during the Cold War."--