Everyone, at some time in his or her life, fantasizes about being a spy--James Bond, Mata Hari, George Smiley, Maxwell Smart. At the new International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., more than a million visitors have stepped into the secret history of history--and have learned what it is really like to live undercover. This distinctive and fascinating book at once distills and expands upon that experience, with inside information on how spies do their jobs, interviews with operatives, and hundreds of photographs and descriptions of tools of the trade.

Biographies of legendary spies and how they completed their special operations are included, along with timelines showing the developments of bugs, surveillance tools, weapons, and disguises. Letters, maps, examples of disguises, dead drops, and rare photos make spies and their operations from 2000 BC to the present live and breathe on every page.