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First Platoon by Annie Jacobsen

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First Platoon by Annie Jacobsen

From the author of NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, a powerful story of war in our time, love of country, the experience of tragedy, and a platoon at the center of it all.

This story might sound familiar at first: it is about a platoon of mostly nineteen-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an experience that will change all their lives. But their part of the story folds into the next: linked to those soldiers and never comprehensively reported before is the U.S. Department of Defense's quest to build the world's most powerful biometrics database, with the ability to identify, monitor, catalog, and police people all over the world.

First Platoon is an American saga of technology and war that illuminates a transformation of society. It is about identity in the age of identification. About humanity in the age of biometrics, iris scans, fingerprint scans, voice patterning, detection by odor, gait, and more. And about the power of point of view in a burgeoning surveillance state.

Based on hundreds of formerly classified documents, FOIA requests, and exclusive interviews, First Platoon is an investigative expose by a master chronicler of government secrets. First Platoon reveals a post-9/11 Pentagon whose identification machines have grown more capable than the humans who must make sense of them. A Pentagon so powerful it can cover up its own internal mistakes in pursuit of endless wars. And a people at its mercy, in its last moments before a fundamental change so complete it might be impossible to take back.
Jacobsen, Annie: -

Annie Jacobsen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Area 51 and Operation Paperclip and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain. She is a graduate of Princeton University and a former contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781524746674
ISBN 10 1524746673
Title First Platoon
Author Annie Jacobsen
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published 2022-01-25
Number of pages 400
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.