The release of John Friedman’s book The Secret Histories: Hidden Truths that Challenged the Past and Changed the World is timely. Amid fresh revelations that top officials in the Bush administration are mired in cover-ups and half-truths that led the country into the Iraq War, Friedman’s collection of “secret” documents that changed history packs a powerful political punch. From IBM’s involvement in creating machines to support the work of the Third Reich, to the FBI’s attempt to gather information in order to deport peacenik and “rabble rouser” John Lennon, to the recent photos released from the prison scandal at Ahrub Gharib, Friedman compilation is a tribute to the citizens, journalists, lawyers and elected officials who doggedly followed a trail of suspicious activity and corruption in order to name the guilty parties and attempt to bring them to justice.

Friedman is a journalist and documentary filmmaker who wisely lets these once-suppressed items—memos, reports, tapes, photos and faxes—speak for themselves and for the truths that have been brought to light despite attempts by the powers-that-be, including government agencies and multinational corporations, to bury them.

In his Introduction, Friedman argues for the importance of his work by noting that in the shadow of the rise of the modern bureaucratic state, “the cult of secrecy has grown exponentially” and in order to maintain its power, “bureaucracy hides information about its activities.” When lawmakers and citizens remain in the dark about what the bureaucracy is doing, “the less chance there is for criticism and change” and power and control are consolidated. Notably, criticism and change are what has come in the wake of the revelations of the “secret histories” gathered here.

Reading the transcripts and reports behind familiar scandals, including Watergate and the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam War, one will be shocked at the obvious evidence of corruption and deceit by the U.S. government and the military. Disturbing revelations about the FBI’s attempt to bring down Martin Luther King, Jr. through blackmail due to his “communist sympathies” and to the multinational corporation Exxon’s deliberate disregard of safety procedures that led to the Exxon Valdez oil spill and subsequent neglect in cleaning up after this monumental environmental disaster, will inevitably awaken the reader as well.

At times painful to read, Friedman’s documents speak volumes about the disturbed condition of our contemporary world in which power and money are privileged over human life and moral values. In “The Genocide Fax,” we learn that in 1994, a U.N. force commander had requested permission to oversee an intervention from the U.N. to subvert the civil war in Rwanda. The fax went unheeded and resulted in a modern genocide; the U.S. government has since apologized for its lapse in attention to the commander’s fax although there has been no formal investigation into who is to blame for this mistake. Along with a short explanation about the subsequent series of events, the fax is reprinted on the page and proves haunting in its undecorated simplicity; it is the literal warning—in black and white---before the storm.

It’s impossible to read Friedman’s book, which concludes with a new look at the irregularities around voting in Florida during the 2000 U.S. presidential election and the photos and allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and not wonder about the injustices being carried out at this moment that we have yet to discover. Which population is our government neglecting and what incriminating information are they suppressing that might compromise the principles upon which our country was founded?

Friedman’s collection of “secret histories” might make readers realize what American citizens have to fear is not fear itself, but the government, agencies and officials that do not support and protect homeland interests, instead they conspire to hoard power and inflict damage control.