About this item
Whistleblowers pay with their lives to save ours. When insiders like former NSA analyst Edward Snowden or ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley or Big Tobacco truth-teller Jeffrey Wigand blow the whistle on high-level lying, lawbreaking or other wrongdoing - whether it's government spying, corporate murder or scientific scandal - the public benefits enormously. Wars are ended, deadly products are taken off the market, white-collar criminals are sent to jail. The whistleblowers themselves, however, generally end up ruined. Nearly all of them lose their jobs - and in many cases their marriages and their health - as they refuse to back down in the face of increasingly ferocious official retaliation. That moral stubbornness despite terrible personal cost is the defining DNA of whistleblowers. The public owes them more than we know. In Bravehearts, Hertsgaard tells the gripping, sometimes darkly comic and ultimately inspiring stories of the unsung heroes of our time. A deeply reported, impassioned polemic, Bravehearts is a book for citizens everywhere - especially students, teachers, activists and anyone who wants to make a difference in the world around them.
About the Author
Described by Barbara Ehrenreich as "one of America's finest reporters," Mark Hertsgaard has written for the "New Yorker", "Vanity Fair", and "Time", and is author of four books, including "Earth Odyssey". He has traveled the world seeking answers to the question of how to keep humanity alive in the face of global warning. A Soros fellow, he recently attended the Copenhagen Conference, widely considered the most important global meeting in the history of the climate issue. "
