An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent

An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent

by OwenMatthews (Author)

Synopsis

The thrilling true story of Richard Sorge - the man John le Carre called `the spy to end spies', and whose actions turned the tide of the Second World War Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and deluded generation who found new, radical faiths after their experiences on the battlefields of the First World War, Sorge became a fanatical communist - and the Soviet Union's most formidable spy. Like many great spies, Sorge was an effortless seducer, combining charm with ruthless manipulation. He did not have to go undercover to find out closely guarded state secrets - his victims willingly shared them. As a foreign correspondent, he infiltrated and influenced the highest echelons of German, Chinese and Japanese society in the years leading up to and including the Second World War. His intelligence regarding Operation Barbarossa and Japanese intentions not to invade Siberia in 1941 proved pivotal to the Soviet counteroffensive in the Battle of Moscow, which in turn determined the outcome of the war. Never before has Sorge's story been told from the Russian side as well as the German and Japanese. Owen Matthews takes a sweeping historical perspective and draws on a wealth of declassified Soviet archives - along with testimonies from those who knew and worked with Sorge - to rescue the riveting story of the man described by Ian Fleming as `the most formidable spy in history'.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 26 Jan 2017

ISBN 10: 1408857790
ISBN 13: 9781408857793
Book Overview: The thrilling true story of Richard Sorge - the man John le Carre called `the spy to end spies', and whose actions turned the tide of the Second World War

Media Reviews
An epic account ... Brilliantly written * praise for Stalin's Children, Guardian *
Stalin's Children should be required reading for anyone involved with economic, cultural or political relations with [Russia] ... A poignant and insightful reading experience * praise for Stalin's Children, New York Post *
Few books say so much about Russia then and now, and its effect on those it touches * praise for Stalin's Children, Economist *
Author Bio
Owen Matthews studied Modern History at Oxford University before beginning his career as a journalist in Bosnia. He has written for the Moscow Times, The Times, the Spectator and the Independent. In 1997, he became a correspondent at Newsweek magazine in Moscow where he covered the second Chechen war, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. His first book on Russian history, Stalin's Children, was translated into 28 languages and shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award and France's Prix Medicis.