Mara Hvistendahl's Books

The Scientist and the Spy

A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage

By: Mara Hvistendahl

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The Scientist and the Spy

A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage

By: Mara Hvistendahl

A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is pursued by the U.S. government for trying to steal trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. In September 2011, sheriff’s deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men’s rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country—all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN—and became a pawn in a global rivalry. Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States’ recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. The Scientist and the Spy is both an important exploration of the issues at stake and a compelling, involving read.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0735214298

ISBN 13

9780735214293

Unnatural Selection

Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

By: Mara Hvistendahl

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Unnatural Selection

Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

By: Mara Hvistendahl

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize A Slate Best Book of 2011 A Discover Magazine Best Book of 2011 Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in ten years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have twenty-four million more men than women. The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U.S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval. Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably-researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them.

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Page Count

337

Publisher

PublicAffairs

Published Date

ISBN 10

1586489917

ISBN 13

9781586489915

The Scientist and the Spy

A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage

By: Mara Hvistendahl

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The Scientist and the Spy

A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage

By: Mara Hvistendahl

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

338

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0735214298

ISBN 13

9780735214293

Unnatural Selection

Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

By: Mara Hvistendahl

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Unnatural Selection

Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

By: Mara Hvistendahl

A shocking expose of the causes of Asia's massive gender imbalance and its consequences across the globe

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Public Affairs

Published Date

ISBN 10

1586488503

ISBN 13

9781586488505

Book's by Mara Hvistendahl

The Scientist and the Spy

The Scientist and the Spy

Unnatural Selection

Unnatural Selection

The Scientist and the Spy

The Scientist and the Spy

Unnatural Selection

Unnatural Selection

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