Overview
Around the world, his name is synonymous with security andprotection. The legendary agency he began nearly one hundred andfifty years ago is still in operation today, as are many of thesurveillance and infiltration techniques he originated. Hiscompany's trademark symbol, a large, unblinking eye, inspired theterm private eye.
As befits a man who spent so much of his life working behind thescenes, Allan Pinkerton's life has been shaded in mystery andmisinformation. Now, after a decade of painstaking research,award-winning biographer James Mackay pierces the web ofcontradictions, half-truths, and myths to reveal, for the firsttime, the true story of the life and career of this colorful,complex, and controversial man.
Born in Scotland, Allan Pinkerton arrived in America with asolitary silver dollar in his pocket and—as legend hasit—the law hot on his heels. A cooper by trade, he might havespent his life making barrels but for a fateful trip in the summerof 1846. On an uninhabited island, where he had gone to cutsaplings for barrel staves, Pinkerton happened upon a thicket wherea blackened patch suggested a recent fire. To Pinkerton, it alsosuggested something was amiss. In what became his very first case,the young cooper employed his acute powers of deductive reasoning,patience, and perseverance that would become the hallmarks of hismodus operandi. His dogged determination (and several damp, cold,lonely nocturnal vigils) paid off when a gang of counterfeiters wasdiscovered. The modern detective was born.
Through four decades of tumultuous history, Allan Pinkerton leftan indelible mark. From the Underground Railroad to the Chicagounderworld to Pennsylvania and the civil unrest of the notoriousMolly Maguires, he took on bandits, bank robbers, kidnappers,spies, and even Jesse James himself. His role in the Civil War wascritical: as Lincoln's spymaster, he managed a network of spies whoworked behind Confederate lines and tackled espionage at thehighest levels in Washington itself. In particular, James Mackay'sscrupulously balanced account challenges the conventional view ofthe controversy surrounding Pinkerton's role in the Peninsularcampaign of 1862. Was poor intelligence responsible for prolongingthe war?
A man of firm beliefs and principles, Allan Pinkerton could be afair-minded employer—and an absolute tyrant as a husband andfather. As intriguing as any of the detective's countless cases,Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye is a masterful look at anextraordinary figure, filled with the rich, revealing details thatdistinguish the best biographies.
"James Mackay, the award-winning biographer of Robert Burns, isthe first historian to attempt to shade in both the darker andlighter sides of Pinkerton, and the result is the tightest and mostreliable account so far, a portrait of a man at once deeplyadmirable and quite obnoxious." —The Times (London).
"A fair-minded and thorough analysis of a complex andcontradictory man . . . an impressive look at the life ofPinkerton." —The Daily Telegraph (London).
This book title, Allan Pinkerton (The First Private Eye), ISBN: 9780471194156, by James Mackay, published by Wiley (August 21, 1997) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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