Our man in Charleston :

Britain's secret agent in the Civil War South

Christopher Dickey

Very interesting accounts of the period leading up to the Civil War in Charleston, and the correspondence between the diplomats and their government in London.

Palmerston: "No parallel in the conduct of any other civilized country"

Bunch to Clarendon: "bigotry and fanaticism unparalleled, I hope, in any other section of the civilized world."

Also interesting was the equation between lobbying and bribing.

Dickens: "license to torture corrupted the whole of society"

Two interesting characters from newspapers in Charleston
Robert Barnwell Rhett, Charleston Mercury
Leonidas Spratt, Charleston Southern Standard, who also wrote for the Mercury later during the war

Also interesting at the time was William Walker,a mercenary in Latin America, who usurped the presidency of Nicaragua in 1856 until 1857, and later executed by Honduras in 1860.

Pulblisher's description: The little-known story of a British diplomat who serves as a spy in South Carolina at the dawn of the Civil War, posing as a friend to slave-owning aristocrats when he was actually telling Britain not to support the Confederacy

Securing The City

Inside America's Best Counterterror Force-The NYPD

By Christopher Dickey

This is an interesting history of the years leading up to 9-11, and the years after it, published in 2009.

There is also some historical background from years before that. The author also writes about related events in the Middle East and elsewhere. I read this while waiting for a copy of Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South to come in at the library here.