Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda, by Kristie Macrakis
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Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda, by Kristie Macrakis
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Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies is the first history of invisible writing, uncovered through stories about scoundrels and heroes. Spies were imprisoned or murdered, adultery unmasked, and battles lost because of faulty or intercepted secret communications. Yet, successfully hidden writing helped save lives, win battles, and ensure privacy; occasionally it even changed the course of history. Kristie Macrakis combines a storyteller's sense of drama with a historian's respect for evidence in this page-turning history of intrigue and espionage, love and war, magic and secrecy. From the piazzas of ancient Rome to the spy capitals of the Cold War, Macrakis's global history reveals the drama and importance of invisible ink. From Ovid's advice to use milk for illicit love notes, to John Gerard's dramatic escape from the Tower of London aided by orange juice ink messages, to al-Qaeda's hidden instructions in pornographic movies, this book presents spellbinding stories of secret messaging that chart its evolution in sophistication and its impact on history. An appendix includes fun kitchen chemistry recipes for readers to try out at home.
Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda, by Kristie Macrakis- Amazon Sales Rank: #1079737 in Books
- Brand: MacRakis, Kristie
- Published on: 2015-05-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x 1.00" w x 5.40" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 392 pages
Review "gripping." Roger Lewis, Daily Mail, Book of the Week"entertaining stories told by... Kristie Macrakis in her beguilingly informative and sweeping survey of hidden communication" Nigel Jones, The Spectator"an immensely diverting overview." Barry Forshaw, The Independent"Macrakis's...enthusiasm and appetite for her subject are infectious." Alan Judd, Literary Review"From parlor trick to weapon of war, invisible ink and other means of hidden writing emerge as one of mankind's more intriguing inventions in this lively history....engaging prose...An engrossing study of unseen writing and the picaresque misadventures of those who employ it." Kirkus Reviews"At hand is an utterly fascinating account...read this book." Washington Times"For every person who experimented with secret inks in our youth, at last we have a splendidly written history of how these inks were developed and the role they played in history. As a bonus, in the Appendix is a useful guide to secret inks and 'kitchen chemistry experiments,' where the reader will find the secret formulas and instructions needed to make your messages disappear... and appear again! I enthusiastically recommend this book!"—H. Keith Melton, coauthor (with Robert Wallace) of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda (H Keith Melton)“Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies is a thorough and interesting historical look at the origin and evolution of 'secret' or 'invisible' writing. The book is written in a very reader friendly, accessible style, making it suitable for a broad audience. The brief historical vignettes of individuals such as Kurt Frederick Ludwig and Madame Maria de Victorica and their use of invisible ink are light, breezy, and easily digested."—Allen Hornblum, author of Acres of Skin and The Invisible Harry Gold (Allen Hornblum)“Kristie Macrakis here reveals long-hidden secrets of invisible ink, microdots, and other ways spies, lovers, generals, businessmen, and ordinary folk have concealed messages they didn't want others to read. No one else has ever done this so well and so fully. A tour de force!”—David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers (David Kahn)“Kristie Macrakis's fascinating, pathbreaking book shows how secret writing was developed by both lovers and spies (an exotic combination in the history of covert communication). Though nowadays widely regarded as child's play, in the world wars and Cold War of the twentieth century, secret writing remained, as Macrakis vividly demonstrates, a deeply serious business."—Christopher Andrew, Cambridge University (Christopher Andrew)"Prisoners, Lovers & Spies captivates with its tales of early secret communication.”—Suzy Spencer, KirkusReviews.com (Suzy Spencer KirkusReviews.com)"An utterly fascinating account . . . the author knows her territory. Read this book."—Joseph C. Goulden, The Washington Times (Joseph C. Goulden The Washington Times)‘Kristie Macrakis’s Prisoners, Lovers & Spies is subtitled The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda, and this curious accoutrement of the spy’s trade provides an immensely diverting overview of secret and hidden writing, from lovers making clandestine assignations to Mata Hari providing information for her paymasters ad to details of terrorist operations hidden in pornography.’—Barry Forshaw, The Independent (Barry Forshaw The Independent 2014-06-14)‘Kristie Macrakis’s gripping study of secret writing in its hidden or invisible form is chiefly a history of espionage techniques, or what John le Carre used to call tradecraft.’—Roger Lewis, Daily Mail (Roger Lewis Daily Mail 2014-06-13)‘Kristie Macrakis, an American historian of secrecy, has chosen a subject full of colour and humour.’—Oliver Moody, The Times (Oliver Moody The Times 2014-07-12)'A beguilingly informative and sweeping survey of hidden communication.'—Nigel Jones, The Spectator (Nigel Jones The Spectator 2014-07-19)
About the Author Kristie Macrakis, the author or editor of five books, is professor of history, technology, and society at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her other books include Surviving the Swastika and Seduced by Secrets. She lives in Atlanta, GA.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Want to save your secrets? Read this book! By Pam Perry Kristie Macrakis is a friend of mine. She kindly sent me a free copy of her book because my writing group, of which she was a member while working on it, offered her support, encouragement and critiques as she worked through the manuscript.Having done full disclosure, let me assure you that her book is a wonderfully evocative and entertaining story of how secret writing enabled communications between lovers, spies, scientists and even terrorists from ancient to modern times. Grounded in her rigorous scholarship, the book also provides many fascinating stories about people and relationships that make it read like a page-turning thrillerI recommend it highly.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Revealed: The History of Hidden Writing By Rob Hardy You can find hundreds of volumes on the history of cryptography, the encoding and decoding of messages, and the cracking of secret codes. Comparatively little has been written about its sister discipline, hidden or covered writing and the use of invisible ink. Kristie Macrakis, a professor of history, technology, and society, thus had a problem when she wanted to include hidden writing in her lectures on the history of espionage. She wound up writing the book she wished she could have consulted. _Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda_ (Yale University Press) is not (as the subtitle suggests) a history of merely invisible ink, but also different ways of hiding messages not involving writing, like microdots and embedded codes within pornographic photographs. It’s a fascinating account, with plenty of anecdotes over the centuries. If you ever fooled around as a kid writing with lemon juice and developing the invisible messages by heat, you know that such tricks are fun, but many of the spies and others here found the use of such inks a serious, even deadly, business.The history starts more playfully, however, with the first mention of invisible ink going to the Roman poet Ovid in _The Art of Love_. He explained that a lover could write a letter with fresh milk. The recipient could then dust the letter with coal dust, and the words would appear. You’d think that with lemons all over the Mediterranean, and how well even kids know about using lemon juice for secret messages, writing with such ink would have been been discovered early, but Macrakis was surprised to find this was not so. The juice was used as an invisible ink in Italy by the sixteenth century. Macrakis frequently returns to the classic lemon juice secret ink, but this is because lovers and spies keep returning to it, even in modern times. It is surprising to read that German spies were using lemon juice in World War I; Germany had a strong chemicals industry and could have been using something more sophisticated. Some of the German lemon juice users wound up being shot at the Tower of London. It wasn’t just the bad guys that used secret inks. Our own George Washington was an enthusiast for “a new mode of correspondence,” an ink developed by Dr. James Jay, brother of the more famous Founding Father John Jay. It is interesting that the method was so secret, no one after the war was over knew what it had been; Washington himself did not know what it was. It was only in the 1930s that some of the letters using the sympathetic stain were analyzed with infrared and ultraviolet tests; Jay’s formula was found to be the old standby, gallnut ink developed with ferrous sulfate.It isn’t all secret ink; Macrakis has chapters on microdots and on the hiding of information as codes within photographs. She includes anecdotes about how the CIA used dead rats as a hiding place for message drops (it kept a supply of such rats in the freezer) or the pleasures of using semen as a natural invisible ink supply. Plus she and Jason Lye, a color chemist, have written an appendix about kitchen experiments you can do at home with more than just lemon juice. (It is interesting that for centuries there has been folklore that writing with vinegar and alum on an egg is a good way to get secret messages in to prisoners who can also use the eggs. Boiling the egg is supposed to bring out the message; but she and Mr. Lye say this never works.) There are many amusing and dark stories here to illuminate centuries of cleverness and innovation that we were never supposed to learn about.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Part thriller, part spy story, part historical novel By Angelino Excellent, a must read.Part thriller, part spy story, part historical novel.In this day and age of NSA spying a must read.
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