We are living in a time of mind-boggling corruption, but we are also, as it happens, living in a golden age of whistleblowing. Over the past two decades, the brave insiders who decide to expose wrongdoing have gained unprecedented legal and social stature, emerging as the government's best weapon against corporate misconduct - and the citizenry's best defence against government gone bad. They are also forcing us to consider fundamental questions about our democracy, especially the proper balance between free speech and state secrecy, and between individual rights and corporate power. Drawing on relentless original research, including in-depth interviews with more than 200 whistleblowers and the elite coterie of legal trailblazers who have armed them for battle-plus scores of politicians, intelligence analysts, government watchdogs, cognitive scientists, and other experts - Crisis of Conscience is a modern-day David-and-Goliath saga, told through a series of riveting cases drawn from Big Pharma, the military, and beyond. Whistleblowers are not only heroes who expose and anatomize corruption and ensure that it is punished - usually at enormous cost to themselves - Mueller shows they are also the freethinking citizens on whom our republic was conceived, models we all must think and act more like if our democracy is to survive.
Review
"This trenchant examination of whistle-blowing is based on interviews with more than two hundred people who have exposed wrongdoing in areas such as national security, finance, and health care."
--The New Yorker
"Ambitious...Powerful...His extensively reported tales of individual whistleblowers and their often cruel fates are compelling...and they reveal what it can mean to live in an age of fraud." -- The Washington Post
"A sweeping new chronicle of the nation's whistleblowers, the difficulties they have faced and the wrongdoing they have exposed."--Seattle Times
"A masterful, eye-opening account of heroes 'who are fighting a rising tide of wrongdoing by the powerful.'" -- Fast Company
"Wide-ranging, detailed, compelling, and often alarming"--American Interest
"Engrossingly examines the ethics, mechanics, and reverberations of whistleblowing of all kinds, emphasizing how bitterly controversial the practice remains, posing a clash between group loyalty and individual conscience.... Superb reporting on brave people who decided, 'It would have been criminal for me not to act.'" -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"This exceptionally timely book is sure to strike a chord with readers paying close attention to the political landscape." -- Publishers Weekly
"Mueller's powerful but disheartening story of pervasive fraud and a general collapse of ethical behavior with only glimmers of hope from the bravery of whistleblowers is fully accessible to general readers and substantive enough for academic audiences; a must-read." -- Library Journal (starred)
"A fascinating history of the self-deputized referees who blow the whistle on illicit activities that put Americans' freedom, money, health, and lives at risk." -- Booklist
"An extraordinary book, both meticulously researched and a page-turner. Crisis of Conscience is a call to arms and to action, for anyone with a conscience, anyone alarmed about the decline of our democracy." -- Wendell Potter, New York Times-bestselling author of Deadly Spin and Nation on the Take
"This is the definitive treatment of whistleblowing. Tom Mueller not only describes the ordeals and impact of those who change the course of history, but takes us on a journey through their souls." -- Tom Devine, Legal Director, Government Accountability Project
Praise for Tom Mueller and Extra Virginity:
"In covering an industry that has its heroes and villains ... Tom Mueller does a splendid job of sorting out the players. ... I don't know anyone who has put it all together more thoroughly or entertainingly." -- Los Angeles Times
"[Mueller's] history lessons are never less than interesting." --Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Mueller does for his subject what Susan Orlean did for orchids." -- Columbus Dispatch
About the Author
Tom Mueller's writing has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic. He is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.
