Top products from r/TheAmericans
We found 23 product mentions on r/TheAmericans. We ranked the 26 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
2. Deutschland 83 Season 1 (English Subtitled)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
3. Operation Whisper: The Capture of Soviet Spies Morris and Lona Cohen
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Foreedge
5. Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
6. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
7. Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 1
8. Everything Flows (New York Review Books Classics)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
9. ASR Federal Ultraviolet Reactive Invisible Theft Detection Powder and Portable UV Flashlight
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Ultraviolet powder and paste can be applied to locks, fire alarm boxes, off-limits door knobs, computer keyboards, etc.Powder, once touched, remains on fingers and hands, invisible except under UV lightDesigned for theft detection and the identification of stolen or altered itemsNon-toxic | 1/4oz. c...
10. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 1
13. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Great product!
14. Spies in Our Midst: The Incredible Story of Igor Gouzenko, Cold War Spy (Amazing Stories)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
15. The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
16. How the Cold War Began: The Igor Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
17. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Basic Books AZ
18. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States In Central America (Second Edition)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
TV on same level as The Americans is hard, because it's by far the best show I've seen.
But try Ozark - excellent and the actress who plays Kimmie is in it. Homeland. Deutschland 83 & Deustchland 86 (86 is basically the second season of Deutschland 83, and there will be an 89 as well). The Handmaid's Tale.
As far as books:
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00C0ALX7M/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr= - About cooking, yes, but also about everyday life in the USSR. Very sweet.
Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003K15IE4/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr= - This book (thinly veiled fiction) is a straightforward, but absolutely devastating read about Soviet-style totalitarianism and how everyday people made accommodations to be able to live in such a society. An amazing book. I'm on the stoic side as a reader, but there is one scene in there that catches me at the back of the throat every time I think of it.
The Charm School by Nelson Demille - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000SEGDRW/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr= - Honestly, this is no great work of literature, but a spy thriller focused on a Soviet school that trains spies to be "Americans"
Two more writers of note: Anne Applebaum and Svetlana Alexievich. Both write approachable non-fiction about Russia and have multiple, amazing books to check out.
Oleg Gordievsky and Ryszard Kukliński were two of the West's whales back in the '80s. Kuklinski's story is covered in this excellent book , which I've read. Gordievsky's book is also supposedly pretty good.
Walker was part of the 1985 trio that cost the CIA pretty much every agent they had in the USSR (there were at least two others, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, who were bigger players, and there's good arguments that there was a fourth mole they never caught ). His escape is covered in the excellent TV miniseries The Assets (episode: Trip To Vienna).
If anyone is interested in History:
Latin American in the Era of the Cuban Revolution
Inevitable Revolutions
Both great books that go well with the theme of Latin America this season. The first book is an easier read, while the second might be better suited for history lovers.
What /u/kickstand said plus: it's a self-contained season. The spy game moves fast because the story arc is resolved for all characters in only 8 episodes.
The next seasons are rumored to be Deutschland 86 and Deutschland 89, each with a new cast and situations, in a historical context for those years (and boy, was 1989 interesting in Germany).
I haven't caught it on Netflix, but I'm 100% sure it was on Amazon Prime Video because I bought the whole series download ;) - http://www.amazon.com/Deutschland-83-Season-English-Subtitled/dp/B010CCDE4E
I just saw that Hulu may have it too.
Cheers!
If you want a great book, that’s also a true story and that takes place in the same time period get “The Spy and The Traitor” it’s basically about a guy who worked his way up to Arkady’s position but was also a double agent for MI6 nearly 10 years:
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/024118665X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ps-uCbXP7T4WD
Deustchland 83
German spy thriller about an East-German spy embedded under a NATO general during a war game. 2nd season is about shady financial shenanigans in South Africa during Apartheid, and the main character falling in love with a spy from the West. 3rd season coming soon.
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Counterpart
English-language hard Sci-Fi+Spy series. It's an allegory about the East vs. West split, but it's based on a portal being opened to a mirror of our universe, the two sides of which soon diverge and lose trust with each other, thus the spy game. 2 solid seasons.
I also heartily recommend The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
https://www.amazon.ca/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125
Add these to your list:
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Cold-War-Began-Gouzenko/dp/0786718161
https://www.amazon.ca/Spies-Our-Midst-Incredible-Gouzenko/dp/1554390281
This exists. (sort of)
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Face-Unlikely-Vladimir/dp/1594486514
Operation Whisper
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Whisper-Capture-Soviet-Morris/dp/1611688094
UV tracking dust
It's tricky, because it doesn't leave a trail per se, but you can see what they've touched.
Ahem. They already made one.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07588DG7V
Episode 1:
Married spies Felipe and Elise are given a mission by their handler, actress Margo Martindale. They're not happy about it.
Bridge of Spies is a pretty decent movie. Not much spying per se, but it's based on the true story of the prisoner trade of Rudolf Abel (a Soviet illegal captured in Brooklyn) for Gary Powers (the captured U2 pilot) and Frederic Pryor.
Despite its cheesy title, The Spy Who Loved is an entertaining biography of Christine Granville, a Pole who worked undercover for the British in occupied France and Poland during WWII.
A lot of fiction in this thread, I'd like to mention some non-fiction:
www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Freezer-True-Story/dp/0345466632
I read this in high school. Shit was bananas