// Alternatives
Alternatives to The Hacker and the State
Books in our catalog with overlapping topics and a similar reading level to The Hacker and the State. If The Hacker and the State is the wrong fit at beginner level, start here.
01 · 2018
The Perfect Weapon
The NYT national security correspondent's account of how cyber weapons became the tool states reach for short of war, from Stuxnet to Russian election interference. Strong on the politics and decision-making, light on the technology.
Beginner4/5David E. Sanger02 · 2019
Sandworm
Long-form journalism on the GRU's hacking operations, the best non-technical book on what state-level cyber actually looks like.
Beginner5/5Andy Greenberg03 · 2023
A Hacker's Mind
Bruce Schneier extends the security-engineering frame of "hacking" to law, finance, politics, and tax: every rule-based system has exploitable seams, and the wealthy and powerful exploit them constantly.
Beginner4/5Bruce Schneier04 · 2021
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends
Nicole Perlroth's reporting on the global zero-day market: how exploits get bought, by whom, and how the gray-then-black market shapes which vulnerabilities get fixed and which get hoarded.
Beginner4/5Nicole Perlroth05 · 2016
Dark Territory
Fred Kaplan's policy-side history of US cyber capability, from Reagan-era panic about WarGames to the institutional buildup of NSA's offensive arm and the political fights over its use.
Beginner4/5Fred Kaplan06 · 2014
@War
Shane Harris on the entanglement of US military doctrine, the intelligence community, and private contractors after cyberspace was declared the fifth warfighting domain.
Beginner4/5Shane Harris07 · 2021
Cyberjutsu
Ben McCarty maps declassified medieval ninja scrolls onto modern adversary tradecraft. More analogy-driven than technical, useful for security-program framing.
Beginner3/5Ben McCarty08 · 2024
Technopolitique
A sharp, current essay on how digital technology, AI and platform power have turned citizens into actors in a permanent informational and geopolitical conflict, by a prominent French tech-politics scholar.
Intermediate4/5Asma Mhalla09 · 2018
Cyber
A strategic analysis of cyber conflict as permanent, sub-threshold warfare — and what France and Europe should do about it — by a former senior French strategist and a consultant.
Intermediate4/5Jean-Louis Gergorin, Léo Isaac-Dognin10 · 2015
Introduction à la cyberstratégie
A foundational French introduction to cyberstrategy — treating cyberspace as a domain of strategic thought — by a former officer and strategy scholar.
Intermediate3/5Olivier Kempf