Free Intel Studies Book! (MCIIS Press)

We have just published a new book, Walking Through The Halls Of Intelligence, and, in keeping with our philosophy, we have made a PDF version free to download.

The book summarizes the results of 12 recent graduate theses and covers topics such as:

• A Predictive Model For Clandestine Nuclear Programs


• Is China Stable?


• Accountability: Process And Outcome Systems For Intelligence Analysts


• Personality Types Of Intelligence Analysts

You can also buy a copy of the book (it is a great coffee table book -- with hard cover and dust jacket). All of the profits from the sale of the hard copy go to support graduate level research here at Mercyhurst.

The book was originally a class project in my graduate level class in Intelligence Communications last year. I wanted students to become familiar with the thesis process and the thesis results of previous graduate students (much of which covers topics not previously or, at least, not widely covered in the intelligence studies literature). I also wanted the students to produce an integrated document and to make that document readable.

As a result, I had them write a book...

Their guidance for the individual chapters was to mimic the feature writing style from good news and science magazines (such as Newsweek and New Scientist) and to compile all of the articles into a book length document.

In addition to reading the theses, contacting the original authors for more info, speaking with the thesis advisors and others regarding the importance of the work, they also had to make a variety of group decisions such as settling on a common format and make numerous production decisions (such as cover artwork and layout).

In the end, the book was good enough that we decided to publish it using the same model that we used with the Analyst's Style Manual (still available for both free download and purchase).

It is licensed under a Creative Commons license which means you can download it, share it, use it in classes -- whatever.

While you are there, you might also want to check out the new Mercyhurst College Institute Of Intelligence Studies website. We are still adding content but the look and feel are entirely different.

We have also done a better job of integrating the MCIIS website with the college's main site (for example, if you know a high school student that you think should be thinking about a career in intelligence, there is a link directly from the MCIIS website to a "request for information" page).

Finally, the last time we did this, you crushed our servers with requests, so, if you can't get to the download page immediately, I suggest you wait ten minutes and try again.