I would also love to find a book like that. But, I doubt that it exists -- probably the world was always like this, but, it seems like there is just too much go

I would also love to find a book like that. But, I doubt that it exists -- probably the world was always like this, but, it seems like there is just too much going on, and too much context to try to grasp and consider. One example of just one thing that's barely been reckoned with in mass public discourse, a tiny thing and an unfathomably huge thing, is the impact of national and corporate intelligence agencies on the world over the past 200 years, during the time when any nation could project force into pretty much any other via easy global travel. Every major country has not just spies, but significant resources they can bring to bear in terms of psychological operations and embedded operatives across the political spectrum. Just one small example of this kind of thing is Operation Gladio[1], which had massive ramifications for the political landscape in Europe in the last 50 years, and there are countless things like this that we do and don't know anything about. Just the USA has had a hand in so many bizarre and hugely important events, and then to think that Russia, China, Germany, Israel, France, the UK, and any number of other countries have operated in a similar fashion since WWI or earlier? Yikes! And that doesn't even touch on the corporate side of it, with its roots going back to the gilded age or earlier, where unions and putdowns and murders and all kinds of nutty (but secret) behaviour was just... normal. There's just so much we don't, and may never know, and even that stuff is just a tiny portion of the picture. The kind of open and secret economic games that get played, power and relationship dynamics between countries and their leaders, their wealthy families, the networks of people who meet through family and upbringing, grudges, debts, ideological choices and pragmatic ones -- it goes on and on and on. And then the technological changes! But, I would really love to read that book if you find it. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio