Agents of Change: The Women Who Transformed the CIA by Christina Hillsberg

The timely and revelatory exploration of the pioneering women who changed the insulated world of international espionage from the barrier-crashing challenges of the 1960s to the present day reckoning, told through the eyes of a former intelligence operative herself.

Foreword by Valerie Plame, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Game and former CIA operations officer.

Years after her successful and impactful career at the CIA, Christina Hillsberg became enthralled with the stories of the trailblazing women who forged new paths within the Agency long before she began her career there in the early 2000s. These were women who sacrificed their personal lives, risked their safety, defied expectations and boldly navigated a male dominated spy organisation.

Through exclusive interviews with current and former female CIA officers, many of whom have never spoken publicly, Agents of Change tells an enthralling and at times disturbing story set against the backdrop of the evolving womens movement. It was in the 1960s, a secretarial era, when women first gained a foothold and pushed against the one dimensional pop culture trope of the sexy Cold War Bond Girl. Underestimated but undaunted, they fought their way decade by decade through adversity to the top of the spy game.

Seamlessly weaving together the individual stories of these exceptional women, Hillsberg tackles not only the fight for gender equality at the CIA but also the current dilemma the Agency faces with the culmination of a decades long culture of sexual harassment and assault. Each chapter highlights womens issues during a different decade before bringing to life the stories of female CIA operations officers whose experiences were emblematic of that era.

In this fascinating and empowering chronicle, Hillsberg takes readers inside the Agency in a way that has never been done before, paying long overdue tribute to the survivors and thrivers, the indispensable groundbreakers and the defiant rabble rousers who chose to change their lives and in doing so changed history.

• Women in History

ENG- English

• Hardcover