IT BEGAN WITH A TANTALIZING, ANONYMOUS EMAIL: “I AM A SENIOR MEMBER OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.”

What followed was the most spectacular intelligence breach ever, brought about by one extraordinary man. Edward Snowden was a 29-year-old computer genius working for the National Security Agency when he shocked the world by exposing the near-universal mass surveillance programs of the United States government. His whistleblowing has shaken the leaders of nations worldwide, and generated a passionate public debate on the dangers of global monitoring and the threat to individual privacy.

In a tour de force of investigative journalism that reads like a spy novel, award-winning Guardian reporter Luke Harding tells Snowden’s astonishing story—from the day he left his glamorous girlfriend in Honolulu carrying a hard drive full of secrets, to the weeks of his secret-spilling in Hong Kong, to his battle for asylum and his exile in Moscow. For the first time, Harding brings together the many sources and strands of the story—touching on everything from concerns about domestic spying to the complicity of the tech sector—while also placing us in the room with Edward Snowden himself. The result is a gripping insider narrative—and a necessary and timely account of what is at stake for all of us in the new digital age.

卢克•哈丁（Luke Harding），英国新闻记者、作家，毕业于牛津大学，供职英国《卫报》。《卫报》是斯诺登首选的消息发布平台，也是全球唯一全程报道斯诺登事件的媒体，《卫报》采访团队对斯诺登做了100多小时的面对面采访，几百万字的采访笔记。而卢克•哈丁是“斯诺登事件”采访团队核心成员，《卫报》指定的本书撰写人。

卢克•哈丁曾先后在多家报纸任职，1996年成为《卫报》驻外记者，2007—2011年担任《卫报》莫斯科站站长。他著有《维基解密：阿桑奇与保密制度的战争内幕》等多部作品，其作品被翻译成十数种语言，曾获英国最重要的政治写作奖“奥威尔奖”提名。