The history of art has produced few works as ambitious and as valuable as the Amber Room. Famous throughout Europe as "the eighth wonder of the world," its vast and intricately worked amber panels were sent in 1717 by Frederick I of Prussia as a gift to Peter the Great of Russia. Erected some years later, they quickly became a symbol of Russia's imperial might.
For more than two hundred years the Amber Room remained in its Russian palace outside St. Petersburg (Leningrad), but when the Nazi army invaded Russia and swept towards Leningrad in 1941, the panels were wrenched from the walls, packed into crates, and disappeared from view, never to be seen again.
Dozens of people have tried to trace the whereabouts of the Amber Room, and several of them have died in mysterious circumstances. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have gone further along the trail of this great lost treasure than anyone before them, and have unraveled the jumble of evidence surrounding its fate. Their search catapulted them across eastern Europe and into the menacing world of espionage and counterespionage that still surrounds Russia and the former Soviet bloc. In archives in St. Petersburg and Berlin, amid boxes of hitherto unseen diaries, letters, and classified reports, they have uncovered for the first time an astounding conspiracy to hide the truth.
In a gripping climax that is a triumph of detection and narrative journalism, The Amber Room shows incontrovertibly what really happened to the most valuable lost artwork in the world, and why the truth has been withheld for so long.

The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure

Arts & Photography

Levy, Adrian

Scott-Clark, Catherine

History & Criticism

Walker Books

The shocking, three-decade story of A. Q. Khan and Pakistan's nuclear program, and the complicity of the United States in the spread of nuclear weaponry.
On December 15, 1975, A. Q. Khan―a young Pakistani scientist working in Holland―stole top-secret blueprints for a revolutionary new process to arm a nuclear bomb. His original intention, and that of his government, was purely patriotic―to provide Pakistan a counter to India's recently unveiled nuclear device. However, as Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark chillingly relate in their masterful investigation of Khan's career over the past thirty years, over time that limited ambition mushroomed into the world's largest clandestine network engaged in selling nuclear secrets―a mercenary and illicit program managed by the Pakistani military and made possible, in large part, by aid money from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, and by indiscriminate assistance from China.
Most unnerving, the authors reveal that the sales of nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, so much in the news today, were made with the clear knowledge of the American government, for whom Pakistan has been a crucial buffer state and ally―first against the Soviet Union, now in the "war against terror." Every successive American presidency, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, has turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear activity―rewriting and destroying evidence provided by its intelligence agencies, lying to Congress and the American people about Pakistan's intentions and capability, and facilitating, through shortsightedness and intent, the spread of the very weapons we vilify the "axis of evil" powers for having and fear terrorists will obtain. Deception puts our current standoffs with Iran and North Korea in a startling new perspective, and makes clear two things: that Pakistan, far from being an ally, is a rogue nation at the epicenter of world destabilization; and that the complicity of the United States has ushered in a new nuclear winter.
Based on hundreds of interviews in the United States, Pakistan, India, Israel, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Deception is a masterwork of reportage and dramatic storytelling by two of the world's most resourceful investigative journalists. Urgently important, it should stimulate debate and command a reexamination of our national priorities.

Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons

History

Military

The startling story of America's role, over three decades and five administrations, in aiding and abetting a new age of nuclear terror.
In a masterful investigation, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark reveal the disastrous ideological shortsightedness that has informed American policy toward Pakistan over the last thirty years, and how decades of parochial and sometimes criminal policy enabled a nuclear scandal to evolve. Although seen as a crucial ally, Pakistan instead betrayed the West, building a vast nuclear arsenal in large part with U.S. aid money and selling the technology to countries hostile to the West, while more recently giving shelter to the resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda. Deception puts our current standoffs with Iran and North Korea, and the quagmire in Iraq, in a startling new perspective, revealing how by giving the Pakistan military succor, the United States has helped usher in a new age of nuclear terror. Based on hundreds of interviews over the past decade in the United States, Pakistan, India, Israel and the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia, it is a masterwork of reportage and dramatic storytelling by two of the world's most resourceful investigative journalists.

Nuclear Deception: The Dangerous Relationship Between the United States and Pakistan

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight

Startling and scandalous, this is an intimate insider's story of Osama bin Laden's retinue in the ten years after 9/11, a family in flight and at war.
From September 11, 2001 to May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. The Exile tells the extraordinary inside story of that decade through the eyes of those who witnessed it: bin Laden's four wives and many children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan's ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories.
Investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy gained unique access to Osama bin Laden's inner circle, and they recount the flight of Al Qaeda's forces and bin Laden's innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden's lieutenants, and bin Laden's rising paranoia and eroding control over his organization. They also reveal that the Bush White House knew the whereabouts of bin Laden's family and Al Qaeda's military and religious leaders, but rejected opportunities to capture them, pursuing war in the Persian Gulf instead, and offer insights into how Al Qaeda will attempt to regenerate itself in the coming years.
While we think we know what happened in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, we know little about the wilderness years that led to that shocking event. As authoritative in its scope and detail as it is propuslively readable, The Exile is a landmark work of investigation and reporting.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Bloomsbury USA

Startling and scandalous, this is an intimate insider's story of Osama bin Laden's retinue in the ten years after 9/11, a family in flight and at war. From September 11, 2001 to May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads.The Exile tells the extraordinary inside story of that decade through the eyes of those who witnessed it: bin Laden's four wives and many children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan's ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories. Investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy gained unique access to Osama bin Laden's inner circle, and they recount the flight of Al Qaeda's forces and bin Laden's innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden's lieutenants, and bin Laden's rising paranoia and eroding control over his organization. They also reveal that the Bush White House knew the whereabouts of bin Laden's family and Al Qaeda's military and religious leaders, but rejected opportunities to capture them, pursuing war in the Persian Gulf instead, and offer insights into how Al Qaeda will attempt to regenerate itself in the coming years. While we think we know what happened in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, we know little about the wilderness years that led to that shocking event. As authoritative in its scope and detail as it is propulsively readable,The Exile is a landmark work of investigation and reporting.

Bloomsbury Publishing

La camara de ambar / the Amber Room: La Resolucion De Uno De Los Grandes Misterios Del Siglo XX (Imago Mundi) (Spanish Edition)

Ediciones Destino

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Books by Scott-Clark, Catherine