The Secret World
  • Published: 17 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780140285321
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 960
  • RRP: $32.00
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The Secret World

A History of Intelligence

Formats & editions
Paperback
17 Sep 2019
EBook
28 Sep 2017
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A stupendous history of intelligence, its uses and its neglect - by 'the doyen of intelligence historians' (New Statesman)

The history of espionage stretches back over millennia, yet it has largely been forgotten. This book sets out to recover that lost history, to demonstrate the role of intelligence in global events, and to challenge histories which have so overlooked the intelligence dimension. The Secret World is a gripping account of spies, secrets and espionage through the centuries, tracing the shift in the ancient world from divination to the gathering of real intelligence in the conduct of military operations, and charting its development in statecraft through, amongst others, Renaissance Venice, Elizabethan England, Ancien Régime France, Revolutionary America and Tsarist Russia - right up to the sophisticated modern activities of which Christopher Andrew is the world's leading historian. What difference have security and intelligence operations made to course of history? Why have they so often forgotten by later practitioners? This fascinating book provides the answers.
  • Published: 17 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780140285321
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 960
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Christopher Andrew

Christopher Andrew is Britain's leading historian of intelligence, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History and former Chair of the Faculty of History at Cambridge University. He is also chair of the British Intelligence Study Group, Founding Co-Editor of Intelligence and National Security, former Visiting Professor at Harvard, Toronto and the Australian National University, and a regular presenter of BBC Radio and TV documentaries. His fifteen previous books include The Mitrokhin Archive and The Mitrokhin Archive II, and a number of path-breaking studies on the use and abuse of secret intelligence in modern history.

Also by Christopher Andrew

The Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive II
The Defence of the Realm
See all

Praise for The Secret World

To write a world history of intelligence, from the dawn of recorded history to the present day, is a daunting task. To make such a work accurate, comprehensive, digestible and startling, and all in a single volume, is a stellar achievement. But that is what Christopher Andrew has done in The Secret World.

Edward Lucas, The Times

Brilliant in its sweep and near-miraculous in the detail and confident judgements provided on two and a half millennia of spying ... The book is a crowning triumph of one of the most adventurous scholars of the security world

John Lloyd, Financial Times

Christopher Andrew delivers a stunning secret archaeology of a subject that he himself helped to create

Richard J. Aldrich, Times Literary Supplement