NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Turn: Washington’s Spies and an original series on AMC
Paperback (384 pages), signed by the author, Alexander Rose, and inscribed if you choose.
Updated November 19: The hardbound editions are sold out. We continue to have paperback editions.
An important note on shipping: This book is shipped directly from the author using Media Mail. If you ordered other items from the store, this book will be shipped separately. Allow at least two weeks for delivery of your signed book.
About the book
Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all.
In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy.
Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’ t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception—and proved an adept spymaster.
The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners—that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.
Reviews
“Alexander Rose tells this important story with style and wit.” — Pulitzer Prize–winning author Joseph J. Ellis
“Fascinating . . . Spies proved to be the tipping point in the summer of 1778, helping Washington begin breaking the stalemate with the British. . . . [Alexander] Rose’s book brings to light their crucial help in winning American independence.” — Chicago Tribune
“[Rose] captures the human dimension of spying, war and leadership . . . from the naive twenty-one-year-old Nathan Hale, who was captured and executed, to the quietly cunning Benjamin Tallmadge, who organized the ring in 1778, to the traitorous Benedict Arnold.” — The Wall Street Journal
“Rose gives us intrigue, crossed signals, derring-do, and a priceless slice of eighteenth-century life. Think of Alan Furst with muskets.”—Richard Brookhiser, author of Founding Father
“A compelling portrait of [a] rogues’ gallery of barkeeps, misfits, hypochondriacs, part-time smugglers, and full-time neurotics that will remind every reader of the cast of a John le Carré novel.” — Arthur Herman, National Review
About the Author
Alexander Rose is the author of several non-fiction books, including Empires of the Sky, Men of War, American Rifle, and the New York Times best-selling Washington’s Spies, which was the basis of the AMC original series Turn . He writes the free Substack newsletter, Spionage , and is on Twitter at @AlexRoseWriter. His website is www.alexrose.com.
An important note on shipping: This book is shipped directly by the author using Media Mail. If you ordered other items from the store, this book will be shipped separately. Allow at least two weeks for delivery.