What's the hottest book in America right now?:
I COULD TELL YOU BUT THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE DESTROYED BY ME: IMAGES FROM THE PENTAGON'S BLACK WORLD
by
Trevor
Paglen

“A fresh approach to secret government. It shows that these secret programs have their own culture, vocabulary and even sense of humor.”
—Steven Aftergood, The Federation of American Scientists

“A glimpse of [the Pentagon’s] dark world through a revealing lens—patches—the kind worn on military uniforms.... The book offers not only clues into the nature of the secret programs, but also a glimpse of zealous male bonding among the presumed elite of the military–industrial complex. The patches often feel like fraternity pranks gone ballistic.”
—William BroadThe New York Times

“Gives readers a peek into the shadows ... Department of Defense spokesman Bob Mehal told Newsweek that it ‘would not be prudent to comment on what patches did or did not represent classified units.’ That’s OK. Some mysteries are more fun when they stay unsolved.”
—Karen Pinchin, Newsweek

They’re on the shoulder of all military personnel: patches that symbolize what their unit does. But what if that’s top secret?

Now, in a work that combines ingenious journalism and bizarrely encoded art, author/photographer/investigator Trevor Paglen uncovers seventy–five never–before–seen–in–public military patches that reveal a bizarre secret world of the American military. Paglen investigates classified weapons projects and intelligence operations by examining their own imagery and jargon, disclosing new facts about important classified military units—here known by peculiar names (“Goat Suckers,” “None of Your Fucking Business,” “Tastes Like Chicken”) and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons. The precisely photographed patches—worn by military personnel working on classified missions, such as those at the legendary Area 51—reveal much about a strange and eerie world about which little was previously known.

The author has also assembled an extensive and readable guide, based on extensive interviews with military sources and government records, to the patches included here, making this volume perhaps the best available survey of the military's black world—a $27 billion industry that has quietly grown by almost 50 percent since 9/11.

TREVOR PAGLEN is a geographer by training, and an expert on clandestine military installations. He leads expeditions to the secret bases of the American West and is the author, with A.C. Thompson, of Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights, which the New York Times praised as “the real thing . . . and not on the evening news.”