Book published in 2014
The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man
is a 2014 book by
Luke Harding
, published by
Vintage Books
.
Greg Miller of
The Washington Post
described the book as the first single-book account of
Edward Snowden
's 2013 leaking of
National Security Agency
(NSA) documents. However, Miller commented that the "British perspective" of the book "overlooks some significant U.S. developments and underplays important work done by other journalists, including
Barton Gellman
of
The Washington Post
."
[2]
Reception
[
edit
]
Greg Miller concluded that "Harding has delivered a clearly written and captivating account of the Snowden leaks and their aftermath, succeeding beyond his most basic ambition, which was to arrive in bookstores first."
[2]
The book received positive reviews from
The Guardian
[3]
and the
London Review of Books
, which called it "a super-readable, thrillerish account of the events surrounding the reporting of the documents".
[4]
Michiko Kakutani
in
The New York Times
wrote that the book "reads like a le Carre novel crossed with something by Kafka."
[5]
Conversely,
The Daily Telegraph
'
s
David Blair
wrote: "Harding's story crackles with verve, but complexity and nuance are banished. In particular, the real dilemmas of intelligence work are ignored."
[6]
The Snowden Files
was initially criticised by Snowden associate, journalist
Glenn Greenwald
, when he had only read extracts from Harding's book. Later, after reading the whole book, he conceded that it did not criticise Snowden. On February 14, 2014 Greenwald told the
Financial Times
: "They are purporting to tell the inside story of Edward Snowden but it is written by someone who has never met or even spoken to Edward Snowden. Luke came here and talked to me for half a day without [my] realising that he was trying to get me to write his book for him. I cut the interview off when I realised what he was up to." The
Financial Times
has since amended the article stating: "Harding insists that when he spoke to Greenwald in Rio, he made it very clear he was doing research for his book on Snowden."
[7]
WikiLeaks
founder and Snowden backer
Julian Assange
?subject of the 2011 book
WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy
, coauthored by Luke Harding and
David Leigh
, that Assange condemned
[8]
?harshly criticized both
The Snowden Files
and its author, calling the book "a walloping fraud, written by frauds to be praised by frauds". Assange stated, "the most disappointing thing of all about
The Snowden Files
is that it is exploitative. It should not have existed at all. We all understand the pressures facing print journalism and the need to diversify revenue in order to cross-subsidize investigative journalism. But investigative journalism involves being able to develop relationships of trust with your sources."
[9]
Movie
[
edit
]
The Snowden Files
, along with the fictionalized
Time of the Octopus
by Snowden's Russian lawyer
Anatoly Kucherena
, forms the basis of the
Oliver Stone
film
Snowden
(2016).
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
The Snowden files : the inside story of the world's most wanted man
.
OCLC
870337274
. Retrieved
September 5,
2016
– via WorldCat.
- ^
a
b
Miller, Greg. "
'The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man' by Luke Harding
."
Washington Post
. February 14, 2014. Retrieved on July 14, 2014.
- ^
The Snowden Files by Luke Harding ? review | Books | The Guardian
- ^
Daniel Soar reviews ‘The Snowden Files’ by Luke Harding · LRB 20 February 2014
-
The London Review of Books
- ^
Kakutani, Michiko
. "
The Needles in the Monumental N.S.A. Haystack
."
The New York Times
. February 4, 2014. Retrieved on July 14, 2014. Print: February 5, 2014, page C1, New York edition: "Tales From Within the N.S.A.’s Monumental Haystack."
- ^
The Snowden Files by Luke Harding, review - Telegraph
- ^
Geoff Dyer (14 February 2014).
"Lunch with the FT: Glenn Greenwald"
.
Financial Times
.
- ^
Suroor, Hasan (6 February 2011).
"Assange threatens to sue 'Guardian'
"
.
The Hindu
.
Archived
from the original on 28 September 2011
. Retrieved
20 April
2015
.
- ^
Assange: How 'The Guardian' Milked Edward Snowden's Story
Newsweek
, Retrieved on April 21, 2014