This unique book is an informative study for scholars and the wider public. To the Romanian Securitate, the author was a 'spy' working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then a Hungarian agitator. In reality, she was an anthropologist conducting research in Romania. Taking a polyphonic approach, Katherine Verdery traces these parallel 'lives' by excerpting parts of a 2,781 page declassified Securitate surveillance file, her letters and field notes as well as interviews with former Securitate informants and intelligence officers. Falsely accused of 'her proposed research' being 'a cover for unfolding an intense activity of collecting sociopolitical information,' the Securitate used 'complex informative-operative surveillance' to track her (p. 4). Verdery's phone calls were transcribed, correspondence was intercepted, and she was tracked for sixteen and eighteen hour-days, including being photographed nearly naked in her room.
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