What do you think?
Rate this book
Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film
At a time when the methods and purposes of intelligence agencies are under a great deal of scrutiny, author Wesley Britton offers an unprecedented look at their fictional counterparts.
In Beyond Bond: Spies in Film and Fiction, Britton traces the history of espionage in literature, film, and other media, demonstrating how the spy stories of the 1840s began cementing our popular conceptions of what spies do and how they do it. Considering sources from Graham Greene to Ian Fleming, Alfred Hitchcock to Tom Clancy, Beyond Bond looks at the tales that have intrigued readers and viewers over the decades.
Included here are the propaganda films of World War II, the James Bond phenomenon, anti-communist spies of the Cold War era, and military espionage in the eighties and nineties. No previous book has considered this subject with such breadth, and Britton intertwines reality and fantasy in ways that illuminate both. He reveals how most themes and devices in the genre were established in the first years of the twentieth century, and also how they have been used quite differently from decade to decade, depending on the political concerns of the time.
In all, Beyond Bond offers a timely and penetrating look at an intriguing world of fiction, one that sometimes, and in ever-fascinating ways, can seem all too real.
At a time when the methods and purposes of intelligence agencies are under a great deal of scrutiny, author Wesley Britton offers an unprecedented look at their fictional counterparts. In "Beyond Bond: Spies in Film and Fiction," Britton traces the history of espionage in literature, film, and other media, demonstrating how the spy stories of the 1840s began cementing our popular conceptions of what spies do and how they do it. Considering sources from Graham Greene to Ian Fleming, Alfred Hitchcock to Tom Clancy, "Beyond Bond" looks at the tales that have intrigued readers and viewers over the decades. Included here are the propaganda films of World War II, the James Bond phenomenon, anti-communist spies of the Cold War era, and military espionage in the eighties and nineties. No previous book has considered this subject with such breadth, and Britton intertwines reality and fantasy in ways that illuminate both.
He reveals how most themes and devices in the genre were established in the first years of the twentieth century, and also how they have been used quite differently from decade to decade, depending on the political concerns of the time. And he delves into such aspects of the genre as gadgetry, technology, and sexuality-aspects that have changed with the times as much as the politics have. In all, "Beyond Bond" offers a timely and penetrating look at an intriguing world of fiction, one that sometimes, and in ever-fascinating ways, can seem all too real.
In Beyond Bond: Spies in Film and Fiction, Britton traces the history of espionage in literature, film, and other media, demonstrating how the spy stories of the 1840s began cementing our popular conceptions of what spies do and how they do it. Considering sources from Graham Greene to Ian Fleming, Alfred Hitchcock to Tom Clancy, Beyond Bond looks at the tales that have intrigued readers and viewers over the decades.
Included here are the propaganda films of World War II, the James Bond phenomenon, anti-communist spies of the Cold War era, and military espionage in the eighties and nineties. No previous book has considered this subject with such breadth, and Britton intertwines reality and fantasy in ways that illuminate both. He reveals how most themes and devices in the genre were established in the first years of the twentieth century, and also how they have been used quite differently from decade to decade, depending on the political concerns of the time.
In all, Beyond Bond offers a timely and penetrating look at an intriguing world of fiction, one that sometimes, and in ever-fascinating ways, can seem all too real.
At a time when the methods and purposes of intelligence agencies are under a great deal of scrutiny, author Wesley Britton offers an unprecedented look at their fictional counterparts. In "Beyond Bond: Spies in Film and Fiction," Britton traces the history of espionage in literature, film, and other media, demonstrating how the spy stories of the 1840s began cementing our popular conceptions of what spies do and how they do it. Considering sources from Graham Greene to Ian Fleming, Alfred Hitchcock to Tom Clancy, "Beyond Bond" looks at the tales that have intrigued readers and viewers over the decades. Included here are the propaganda films of World War II, the James Bond phenomenon, anti-communist spies of the Cold War era, and military espionage in the eighties and nineties. No previous book has considered this subject with such breadth, and Britton intertwines reality and fantasy in ways that illuminate both.
He reveals how most themes and devices in the genre were established in the first years of the twentieth century, and also how they have been used quite differently from decade to decade, depending on the political concerns of the time. And he delves into such aspects of the genre as gadgetry, technology, and sexuality-aspects that have changed with the times as much as the politics have. In all, "Beyond Bond" offers a timely and penetrating look at an intriguing world of fiction, one that sometimes, and in ever-fascinating ways, can seem all too real.
267 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
14 people want to read
About the author
Wesley Britton
29 books109 followersImmerse yourself in an extraordinary universe revealed by the most original storytelling you’ll ever experience. “Science fiction yes, but so much more.”
Besides his 33 years in the classroom, Dr. Wesley Britton considers his Beta-Earth Chronicles the most important work he’s ever done. “I suppose an author profile is intended to be a good little biography,” Britton says, “but the best way to know who I am is to read my novels.”
Still, a few things you might like to know about Wes include the fact he’s the author of four non-fiction books on espionage in the media, most notably The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (2009). Beginning in 1983, he was a widely published poet, article writer for a number of encyclopedias, and was a noted scholar of American literature. Since those days, for sites like BlogCritics.org and BookPleasures.com, Britton wrote over 500 music, book, an movie reviews. For seven years, he was co-host of online radio's Dave White Presents for which he contributed celebrity interviews with musicians, authors, actors, and entertainment insiders.
Starting in fall 2015, his science fiction series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles, debuted with The Blind Alien. Throughout 2016, four sequels followed including The Blood of Balnakin, When War Returns, A Throne for an Alien, and The Third Earth. Return to Alpha will be the sixth volume of this multi-planetary epic.
Britton earned his doctorate in American Literature at the University of North Texas in 1990. He taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College until his retirement in 2016. He serves on the Board of Directors for Vision Resources of Central Pennsylvania. He lives with his one and only wife, Betty, in Harrisburg, PA.
Find out more about the Beta-Earth series on the official website -- http://www.drwesleybritton.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 26, 2011
What a pointless book. It purports to be a survey of spy fiction and its mass media off-shoots from the start until shortly before publication, but Britton does not seem to have read most of the books or seen many of the films or TV shows he mentions. Here are the problems:
1. Few authors or film series gets more than a page or two, so no depth of coverage, insight, or analysis
2. Britton often just gives lists of titles and years of publication, but does not give a sense of what makes two books by the same author distinct from one another
3. Many authors and some films have the bulk of the short commentary summarized from the analysis of other authors, so there is no fresh insight from Britton, and often no insight at all
4. Several names are misspelled, such as giving Cain Richmond for Kane Richmond, leaving the impression that Britton is just pulling together a lot of information and systematizing it without really knowing it himself
5. Everything, everything in the book is superficial
I read the book hoping to learn of some writers who were worth reading. Britton does not give enough of a sense of what books are like quality-wise to be helpful in this.
The book is dull. I acknowledge that Britton was up against it a bit. To cover this much material with proper fullness and insight would require a book 850 pages long, not 267, but this is still a crap book. The extra star is for the first part where Britton has some success in describing the first spy novels and how they grew through the next couple of decades.
1. Few authors or film series gets more than a page or two, so no depth of coverage, insight, or analysis
2. Britton often just gives lists of titles and years of publication, but does not give a sense of what makes two books by the same author distinct from one another
3. Many authors and some films have the bulk of the short commentary summarized from the analysis of other authors, so there is no fresh insight from Britton, and often no insight at all
4. Several names are misspelled, such as giving Cain Richmond for Kane Richmond, leaving the impression that Britton is just pulling together a lot of information and systematizing it without really knowing it himself
5. Everything, everything in the book is superficial
I read the book hoping to learn of some writers who were worth reading. Britton does not give enough of a sense of what books are like quality-wise to be helpful in this.
The book is dull. I acknowledge that Britton was up against it a bit. To cover this much material with proper fullness and insight would require a book 850 pages long, not 267, but this is still a crap book. The extra star is for the first part where Britton has some success in describing the first spy novels and how they grew through the next couple of decades.
March 30, 2014
An ambitious survey of spy fiction, the scope of this book is much too broad, as the author attempts to discuss the development of the espionage genre over the past century in both British and American literature, film, and television. Such a wide focus leaves little room for any in-depth consideration of texts. Because the author only glosses each text, the content would be better structured as an encyclopedia with a concise entry for each item. More problematic are the many factual errors throughout the book, which undermine credibility.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews