The Secret World: A History of Intelligence

The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series

by Christopher Andrew

'The most comprehensive narrative of intelligence compiled ... unrivalled' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'Captivating, insightful and masterly' Edward Lucas, The Times

The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The first mention of espionage in world literature is in the Book of Exodus.'God sent out spies into the land of Canaan'. From there, Christopher Andrew traces the shift in the ancient world from divination to what we would recognize as attempts to gather real intelligence in the conduct of military operations, and considers how far ahead of the West - at that time - China and India were. He charts the development of intelligence and security operations and capacity through, amongst others, Renaissance Venice, Elizabethan England, Revolutionary America, Napoleonic France, right up to sophisticated modern activities of which he is the world's best-informed interpreter. 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Espionage, Politics, War, Audiobook, Military Fiction

875 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 4, 2018

About the author

Christopher Maurice Andrew, FRHistS is an Emeritus Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Cambridge with an interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services. (military.wikia.org)

Reviews

[Jaidee · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 " I really really tried" stars !!

I have spent 14 hours on this book over the past few months and have only reached the quarter (25%) mark.

The book is well researched but I find it not only exhaustive but exhausting. My eyes get heavy reading it, I cannot keep track of all the names and I just cannot move forward with it.

I am going to give this two stars for the research but wished I had found it more compelling and interesting.


Right Georgy ?


PS If anybody tells me this gets better at the 28% mark I will bop them one in the nose !

[Italo Italophiles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a history of intelligence work covering roughly 3000 years of human history. It is a scholarly work (16% is notes, references...) lightened with quick-moving, free-flowing prose. There is plenty of scope for further study, encouraged by the excellent bibliography, and there are lots of interesting facts, and some entertaining quotes, like this one: “the most distrustful persons are the biggest dupes”. I discovered that the history of intelligence is also a history of leakers of information important to governments and organizations.

The introduction and conclusion were especially fascinating because they relate many current events to the premise of the book, and drive home the premise: histories have been written without the inclusion of the key element of espionage and intelligence, creating mistaken interpretations of historical events, and that the lack of historical knowledge has caused mistaken interpretations of intelligence.

The author makes a clear case for the importance of intelligence, both secret and that available from open sources, for positive actors on the world stage: to avoid conflicts and wars, to win wars, to build alliances, to support allies, to have clarity when making momentous decisions, to undermine aggressors out to destabilize regions or countries.

A group's use of intelligence for nefarious purposes is also presented in the book: for the destruction of rivals, for financial gain for a clique, for the acquisition of power and influence ultimately for the acquisition of financial gain, and to enhance the egos and sense of security of deluded actors on the world stage.

The chapters are historical divisions, which are always a false form of organization in histories since real life has no smooth beginnings nor endings, but instead tentacles that thread in and out of events, spread out over time. That means there is much overlap between the chapters.

I'm a fan of history books, but they can be mind-numbingly monotonous, just a long series of wars, conflicts, treaties, royals, ministers, pretenders, historical figures, etc. They are very difficult to write, and it is very challenging to keep the reader's interest. I've read great histories and not so great historical accounts. This book falls mid-range, so my advice is take the reading slowly so as not to become overwhelmed.

Since the book clocks in at 960 pages, it will take a while to get though it! It is best if the reader has a sound founding in world history. If not, you can read up along the way, but expect to be overwhelmed. I started with the beginning and conclusion, then hit then the eras of most interest to me, after which I moved on to the other eras. Some chapters I read more diligently than others, to be honest.

The author points out along the way the most common reasons for intelligence community failures, which is fascinating in itself: not seeing things in historical context, prejudice influencing interpretations, underestimating opponents due to arrogance, rivalry within the intel-community hurting the sharing of knowledge, relying on the various crackpots who seem to be attracted to espionage, tailoring analyses to the powers-that-be's expectations, overestimating the organization of enemies, not considering enough the open-versus-authoritarian nature of an opponent's system and how it can affect intelligence, letting myth and religion influence interpretations.

While reading, I created a mental picture of the author as an elderly man, and I wasn't wrong. I found the use of the archaic word “flamboyant” for homosexual men odd in today's more open environment. Also odd was the near universal avoidance of the role that people's sexuality can play in intelligence gathering and interpretation, and the effect of being from a sexual minority, especially a persecuted minority, has on someone becoming a spy or a leaker or an assassin, despite there being historical and current instances. There was also scant mention of sexual blackmail and sexual manipulation in the spying game, which I found hard to fathom considering both human nature and sexual bigotries that have existed through time.

One section in the last chapter especially caught my eye. It is about autocrats and begins with a description of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Autocrats are described as being by nature self-delusional, uneducated and ignorant, irrational, self-destructive, surrounded by sycophants, and being people who put out false narratives that they come to believe, and on which they make major decisions to disastrous effect. The example of Saddam Hussein was offered to show that when dealing with autocrats, analysts can be way off, because the analyst can rarely get into the mind of a self-deluded person. What do they really believe? No one really knows. That is when you are in the danger zone of an unpredictable-actor. I received a review copy of this book; this is my honest review.

[Steve Agland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this book, less from an deep interest in codebreaking or espionage, but more because it falls into my favourite genre: Histories of the World From some Interesting Perspective. And of course, intelligence as a human endeavour is very interesting.

This is a long book. On the spectrum from shallow pop histories to dense dry names-n-dates, this lies closer to the latter than my usual fare. But don't let that put you off - this is a thoroughly entertaining list of names and dates. And note that this book seems designed to allow you to consume its chapters independently, if there are some eras that interest you more. Sometimes I did get the feeling that it was moving too fast despite its depth - there is of course a lot of history here to cover. As such the book is more interested in covering the territory in detail rather than trying to reveal grand themes and argue theses - with the notable exception of the Introduction and Conclusion. I'll try to summarize some of those themes here, and mention just a few of the many colourful episodes in the history of spycraft and international trickery described therein.

One of the main aims of the book is to show that a lack of historical perspective on intelligence can be a key cause of its dysfunction in any particular era, including our own. And as such the book is intended to help rectify that. An recurring thread is Andrew's identification of a variety cultural factors within governments that can lead to a destructive neglect or misuse of intelligence (a lack of historical perspective being just one of them). In ancient Greece and Rome, the religious significance given to omens and portents displaced intelligence as an input to military planning or statecraft, and lead to many of ancient history's greatest strategic facepalms. This is in contrast to ancient China's Sun Tzu (of Art of War fame), and India's Arthashastra. Religion plays a significant role in the decision-making of most leaders prior to the modern age, so much so that the book - in these early sections - mixes anecdotes related to intelligence from both history and myth, including the Old Testament, Homeric poems, and the Hadiths. I found this a little off-putting, but this habit disappears as the story nears the renaissance.

Andrews likes to draw parallels between places distant in time and geography. He notes several similarities between medieval Catholic inquisitions and Stalinist ideological purges and show trials centuries later. Another refrain that appears many times is the notion of "telling truth to power". The ease with which intelligence officials are able to pass on news that contradicts the leadership's prevailing views is correlated with how effective intelligence can be. Here Stalin's USSR is another prime example, where despite a massive well-funded intelligence apparatus, blunders were routinely made, priorities failed to match reality, and information routinely misinterpreted due to unchecked conspiracy theories. On the other hand, USSR also serves as an example of the maxim that authoritarian regimes (in contrast to democracies) are very difficult to gather intelligence on from the outside due to paranoia and a lack of open, publicly-responsible institutions.

The book really starts to get "meaty" with the figure of Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I's de facto "spymaster". His complex network of agents and letter-interception team, including a staff cryptographer, set the rhythm for much of the rest of the book: elaborate tales of intercepted correspondence, battling cryptographers, spies in embassies, and colourful characters making consequential mistakes. For the next half-millennium, the books spends most of its time hopping around European centers of power - particularly the UK, Russia and France. And of course it peeks across the Atlantic from time to time, including an interesting portrait of George Washington - an adept user of intelligence. But Russia in particular is the subject of regular and detailed coverage, and has a fascinating history of espionage and diplomatic intrigue.

Also on the list of cultural tendencies and can derail your intelligence operations is conspiratorial thinking. When this afflicts leaders, evidence which contradicts their theories is ignored, and evidence which supports it is exaggerated, or simply invented. Robespierre in revolutionary France was one extreme example, and of course, that exemplar-of-all-things, Stalin.

Bureaucratic infighting is another problem, as demonstrated by the US's bizarre alternating-day system of signals intelligence reporting between the Army and the Navy in the lead-up to Pearl Harbour. Something that struck me from reading this book is how much the personalities of key people could play a huge role in the course of the events, in particular the people generating, interpreting or receiving intelligence.

There are a lot of just-plain-entertaining stories of daring and deceit in this book, including agents working on behalf of the British Raj in India, who would dress up as monks and pilgrims and travel deep into remote areas, like the Himalayas, with surveying equipment disguised as religious items, and mapping the regions as the result - risking death if they were caught. Or Mitrokhin, the KGB archivist who defected to the UK with a massive library of notes (the fodder for two of Andrew's earlier books). Or the Double-Cross System Britain maintained in WW2 - apparently all of what Germany thought were her agents in England had been converted to feed disinformation. On the flip side, the Cambridge Five, a group of Soviet agents working in absurdly high levels in UK intelligence during the same war, were passing huge amounts of intelligence to the Russians all while Britain was itself doing some the most impressive intelligence work in history.

I was sometimes a little frustrated that some of the technical detail was left out of the book, such as cryptographic techniques and the nitty-gritty of spycraft. I didn't quite understand how it was that states were routinely in the position of being able to intercept nearly all correspondence of interest to them, and yet at the same time, there were spies operating for decades sending information long distances that were never caught. The Cambridge Five being one such example. It was never explained how exactly they physically managed to evade detection.

There are sections of the book that start to feel a little one-damn-ambassador-after-another, or seem to be an amusing collection of tales from history that vaguely relate to intelligence, or assassination, or the wacky exploits of the ruling class. But these stretches were punctuated with enough islands of insight and fascination to keep me going through to the end. And of course, due to bias toward the contemporary, things always seems to get more and more intriguing as history progresses toward the present.

Andrew wraps it up with a satisfying survey of intelligence concerns of today: Islamic terror, China, Saddam's imaginary WMDs, Wikileaks and Snowden. He keeps his political cards politely close to his chest.

This book is a laudable achievement and rich tour through history through one of the most intriguing lenses, and I recommend it to any history buff - especially those politically or militarily inclined. But also if you're just fascinated by the sorts of daring shenanigans and outlier personalities the human race is capable of creating.

I listened to the audiobook version and high recommend Laurence Kennedy's excellent narration, bringing life to often amusing quotations, and an appropriately subtle wink to the copious dry British humour scattered throughout the text.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geçen yılın sonbaharında başladığım Gizli Dünya'yı sonunda bitirebildim. Geçmişten günümüze tüm istihbarat servislerine değinen, konuya dair yazılmış en geniş kapsamlı kitap bu sanırım. Büyük çerçeve çizmeye çalıştığı için hiçbir başlık derinleşmiyor haliyle ama yine de fikir vermeyi başarıyor. Benim gibi konuya meraklı ama çok da bir şey bilmeyen okurlar için oldukça güzel bir bağlangıç noktası.

[Siv30 · Rating 2 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/the-...

[Laura ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret World is an interesting and comprehensive account of the History of Intelligence, albeit a bit dry and very very long. There were strange segways in parts of the narrative and abrupt changes in argument. Overall this felt very episodic, and no larger picture was painted, and very few conclusions were drawn.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Secret World and I was disappointed. The first thing you should know is this is a limited history. The primary focus of the book is intelligence history from a European perspective to include the USA, even though the book starts with the Ancient Near East using the Bible as the medium for conveying the oldest documented history of intelligence. To be far there is some mention of Japan during the first and second World Wars - as it relates to European Powers. China is mentioned - in the summary and only from the period of Mao and later. If the intent is a world history starting with the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent then the rest of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian historical record should be used that has been translated since 1970 - Ugaritic texts from Canaan, Sumerian and Babylonian texts, etc. What is known from China and Japan should be included.

In the intelligence trade every analyst knows that intelligence needs context to be relevant. This remains true when providing a history of intelligence. If you aren't familiar with the historical events for which this history of intelligence uses as a backdrop the chapters become nothing but names and dates instead of an engaging historical narrative.

Up through the invention of the telegraph there is a balanced discussion of intelligence activities from the use of spies, sabotage, cryptography, etc. But once the telegraph arrives on the scene most of the rest of the story is about SIGINT. Albeit SIGINT is important it is not the end all beat all. Nor is there much discussion of how SIGINT changed with the introduction of internet related communication technologies.

Some good things about The Secret World. It is a wonderful historical survey of intelligence agencies and events - once again primarily European. Each chapter is self contained and can for the most part be read independently from other chapters. This allows the reader to reference specific periods of history to relate intelligence activities and events to other historical studies of the same time period. Personally I think this is the best use of this book.

The chapters covering the 20th Century to current as they pertain to the coming to power of the former Soviet Union and the current Russian state are riveting. There is much to learn and understand as it pertains today from what is written here about the fledgling Soviet State's intelligence infrastructure and the role it played in everything from State craft to isolating political opponents.

Mr. Andrew's opinions on the short coming of the intelligence analyst approach to understanding intelligence and in many cases the total lack of how to utilize intelligence in Government executive branches are issues current and future administrations should understand in depth. Western Governments suffer from short term viewpoints lacking the ability to understand historical context in today's events and as a result unable to develop sustainable coherent national strategies that look long term.

A long read cover to cover, but if you are interesting in the history of intelligence, or interested in the intelligence from a specific period then this is a recommended read. The Secret World is well researched and annotated throughout giving the intelligence history buff a wealth of leads to detailed studies to follow-up on.

[Printed Pages and Coffee · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of you who may not know, Professor Andrew is one of (if not the) leading authorities in intelligence history, and I’ve been reading his work since I was a baby undergrad who didn’t know the difference between deception and denial. The fact that I have the opportunity to read this book (published September 2018, you can preorder here) just made my week.

As you can tell, this is going to be a sterling review. And, honestly: it would have to have been a truly atrocious book for me to have been unhappy while reading it. Does that make my review biased? ln one sense, probably. On the other hand, having read Professor Andrew’s work in the past and having studied intelligence for near on a decade myself, I am perhaps uniquely placed to critique such books. Take it how you will.

This book was an awesome read. And I mean, awesome. lntelligence history, despite what some may think or believe, is often stranger than fiction. Professor Andrew has condensed an amazing amount of information into this text, and through an approachable writing style and impeccable use of anecdotal asides has written quite the enjoyable volume. No Saharan sand here! You get to read about turncoats, double agents, triple agents, monarchs throwing their shoes at their spymasters! That one really made me chortle; how undignified, for both parties.

Look, I have a particular interest in intelligence and that drives a lot of my leisure reading as well as my research, but I truly think that this history has something all readers will enjoy. It is a little large (900+ pages), but the way the book is formatted means you can dip into a certain period in intelligence history without having to commit to the whole thing at once, which l quite liked. Or, you can join Nerds’R’Us and read it cover to cover, for your enjoyment and (thorough) edification.

I loved it. Five star read, people.

Full review at https://printedpagesandcoffee.com/201...

[Gabriela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this book was an emotional rollercoaster for me. I abandoned it many times and I really struggled to pass the part where the author focused on the beginning of the intelligence system and how the creation of it evolved with time.

But afterwards...I couldn't keep my hands off it, sometimes taking notes and reading a chapter two times to memorize the information.

This book is the result of an extraordinarily ample work of the author and in order to understand it you have to have some more than basic history knowledge otherwise the amount of information from it can't be followed.

[Suzy P · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very, very detailed account of the history of intelligence that lacked a coherent narrative and had a lot of snippets of facts vaguely strung together by chronological order.

Overall, I would say that unless one has a very good understanding of military history spanning from practically the beginning of man to about a decade ago, then you're going to end up quite lost, or at least Googling lots of things for clarification, which can be fun if you know that's what you're in for. Places, names, events randomly pop up and a note about their spying or ability to gather intelligence is briefly mentioned before quickly moving onto the next place, person or random moment in time. There were many times that I had to go back to see if I had skipped some transition in the text to see if the book had moved on to a different time period as random facts from different periods were introduced in the middle of a story of one battle.

The last third of the book had a coherent narrative and a greater depth of analysis than the rest of it. I would give that part 4 stars.

I listened to this on Audible, and the reading on my version by Laurence Kennedy (this was UK Audible, sometimes US Audible has a different reader) was especially flat and horrible, so I wouldn't recommend him.

The book is interesting and overall a decent read, though I would avoid listening to the Laurence Kennedy version.

[Ludwig M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puh! Det tog bara hela sommaren. Fantastiskt väldetaljerad bok om underrättelsetjänstens historia. Innehållern fascinerande anekdoter som påvisar att världshistorien inte skulle ha varit detsamma utan underrättelsetjänstens existens (de allierades avledningdmanöver innan dagen D hör till bland det mest geniala och betydelsefulla strategiska insatserna någonsin). Anför ett viktigt argument om att beslutsfattare måste ta hänsyn till historien för att ta korrekta beslut. Tungläst facklitteratur som tar tid. Når inte full pott för att jag saknar en diskussion om hur modern underrättelsetjänst i mångt och mycket är förankrad i OSINT.

[Arturo Herrero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casi 1000 páginas sobre la historia de la "inteligencia": servicios secretos, espionaje y contraespionaje, política y diplomacia, información y desinformación, cifrado y descifrado, etc. 3000 años de historia, desde la Biblia hasta el 11-S.

Este libro se parece más a Breve historia de Occidente: las civilizaciones y las culturas que a Sapiens. De animales a dioses: Una breve historia de la humanidad. Es un buen libro para tener una visión general, entrando de muchos detalles pero no es un libro que recomendaría. Mejor ir a episodios concretos, por ejemplo: Fouché: Retrato de un hombre político o Espía y traidor: La mayor historia de espionaje de la Guerra Fría.

[J TC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Com volume e pormenor de informação, Christopher Andrew conta-nos a história da humanidade desde os tempos bíblicos de Moisés (1300 AC) até aos primórdios da primeira guerra mundial. Um texto envolvente e rico em inúmeros pormenores deliciosos.
Um livro a não perder, mas para ler pausadamente

[Suzannah Rowntree]

This was a fabulously readable and fascinating history of espionage beginning with the Bible and Ancient Egypt and ending in the 2010s with the "war on terror". Along the way Andrew tilts at a number of sacred historical cows. The Ancient Greeks and Romans were too superstitious to believe in intelligence; that was left to the ancient Hebrews, whose God prioritised it, and to people like Hannibal and Boudicca, who seem to have understood it. Intelligence as a craft didn't really get going until the medieval period - again, prompted by changes in religious attitudes. In the modern day, the US repeats the mistakes made in ancient empires like Rome of underestimating its opponents - imperial Japan, Usama bin Laden - as a result of a touching belief in American superiority. And of course: yes, the CIA did spend much of the Cold War running influence operations in third-world and other countries around the globe, but if you think the KGB weren't there as well, and doing twice as much but covering their tracks more efficiently, you are perhaps a little naive. (This is not to excuse anything the CIA did - not a tu quoque - but the internet tankies, you understand).

The book is full of stories I will treasure, like Hadrian reading his courtiers' mail and Winston Churchill being kept in ignorance of his own spies' double-cross operations during WWII because it would *checks notes* get him too excited.

It also had some interesting blind spots. For instance, Andrew has a chapter on ancient Chinese and Indian intelligence gathering, and later spotlights on 20th century Japanese imperial and CCP intelligence and counter-intelligence. However, his assertion that it was not until the assassination of William the Silent in the 16th century that saw states using assassination against foreign heads of state may be correct for Europe but is a surprising oversight given the existence of two literal Assassin city-states in medieval Persia and Syria, who were kind of famous for doing just that. And while we're on the subject of the crusades, I actually read this book - all 36h 20m of it on Audible - to see if it could shed any light on the spy network of William of Beaujeu, Master of the Temple until 1291, which included a double agent at the highest level of the Egyptian Mamluk sultanate. But nothing.

It was still a fascinating book, packed with information that will be of real use to future writing projects. Highly recommended!

[Julian Douglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am rounding this up to a 3.5 because this was such a interesting book, however, the book was so dense that some parts made reading it a chore. I think Mr. Andrew has a particular affinity for Tudor England because the amount of time he spent on the history of intelligence in England from 1500-1800 was disproportionate to the rest of the book. I felt that some of the information got repetitive and I also felt that he could have divided some of the chapters further. As he got closer to modern times, the information got more interesting and the exciting to read, but I also think that is because I enjoy that period of time.

Overall, an ambitious project that was full of great information, just very dense and I felt that organization of the book could have been a bit better.

[Jwduke · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are starting off in intelligence or have a general interest in the topic, this book is for you. If your interest in intelligence is fleeting or going to pass, do not read this books - it too much. It’s scholarly and academic.

The book is very in depth and very long. A majority of the book held my interest bc I was aware of the events being discussed. There were insights into these events in this book. Very few spots were dry just bc I could care less. I read through them anyway just to learn. This is where the book could loose you if you are not into intelligence as much as you think you are.

[Altary · Rating 4 out of 5]

By far the most interesting book I have read this year. I borrowed it from the library and I only had 2 weeks to read such a massive text so I finished it in audiobook form. This book is better read than heard, I found myself trailing off in the audiobook - the narrator was a little monotone. It is such a great encyclopedia of espionage but it will begin to get a bit repetitive. I was so surprised to learn about biblical spies - a time of history that I never reference when it comes to the topic of espionage.

[Çağlar Sayar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kamuoyu ile açıklanabilinecek gizliligi kaldırılmış haliyle dünya istihbarat servislerinin genel bir tarihi. Sanırım bir daha bu konuyu bu kadar kapsamlı başka birisi yazamaz . Christopher Andrew gerçekten inanılmaz bir iş yapmış . Meraklısına tavsiye

[Bernhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich bin einerseits von diesem Werk durch seine Fülle begeistert, andererseits verfehlt es seinen eigenen Zweck.

Es bricht auf, die Bedeutung dessen zeigen zu wollen, warum Nachrichtendienste bzw. nachrichtendienstliche Arbeit in historischem Kontext gesehen werden müssen, und will zugleich eine erschöpfende Geschichte über die Nachrichtendienstwelt sein.

Das erste Ziel erreicht das Werk durchaus größtenteils, das zweite Ziel verfehlt es deutlich.

Das Buch, in seiner Länge ein sehr dicker Wälzer, in der Taschenbuchversion 960 eng bedruckte Seiten lang, ist trotzdem in Hinblick auf das Ziel der umfassenden Berichterstattung nicht erschöpfend. Zwar wird das Buch von britischen Medien dafür gelobt, aber dennoch, gelingt es ihm nicht ganz. Der Autor versucht sich vorgeschichtlich durch Deutung der Bibel und dann mit einer sehr oberflächlichen Beschreibung von Aktionen vor der frühen Neuzeit, erst dann erreicht er sicherere Gewässer, sobald es im 18. Jahrhundert ankommt und bis in die Gegenwart vordringt (obwohl die Gegenwart wieder etwas zu seicht geworden ist).

Seine Herangehensweise ist nicht das organisatorische Entstehen und Werden von Nachrichtendiensten oder ihr allgemeines Wirken, sondern anhand von historischen Miniaturen versucht C. Andrew zu die Bedeutung von Nachrichtendiensten und vergleichbaren Aktivitäten zu zeigen. Daneben zeigt er zunehmend die geheimdienstlichen Probleme, die entstehen, wenn solcherlei Aktivitäten keinen Rückbezug auf die Geschichte nehmen oder den historischen Kontext der Gegenwart verachten. Unterschwellig kann beobachtet werden, dass Geheimdienstarbeit zuerst eine personelle Sache ist und erst im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts - nach Maßgabe des Buches - zusehends organisatorisch und institutionell geregelt ist. In der Übergangsphase der frühen Neuzeit bis dahin ist eine Übergangsphase, wo es zwar schon organisatorische, institutionelle Ansätze gibt, die aber weiter von dem Verve Einzelner abhängig bleiben. Soweit ist das Werk gut bis sehr gut.

Die historischen Miniaturen, die wiederum häufig ohne ihren historischen Kontext erscheinen (und wegen der Länge des Buches auch erscheinen müssen), fordern den Lesern heraus. Entweder er hat eine immense historische Bildung oder muss sich neben der Lektüre informieren, denn oftmals werden die Einwürfe des Autoren erst dann glaubhaft, wenn das Gesamtbild des historischen Kontextes verstanden ist. Zudem ist dieses Buch - Hut ab vor der Rechercheleistung - so voller Fakten und Namen, dass das Nachverfolgen eine gewisse Leistung und einen gewissen Willen verlangt.

Das Problem in dem Ansatz ist, da er nicht um die Theorie des Informationswesen ergänzt ist, dass die Miniaturen sprunghaft sind und eben als solche nur sprunghaft in Erinnerung bleiben. Zudem wirbt der Autor immer wieder dafür, dass Nachrichtenwesen im historischen Kontext gesehen werden muss, wie das aber funktionieren kann, diese Antwort bleibt er schuldig. Die Aufforderung aus vorhergehenden Fehlern zu lernen ist richtig, aber ohne Hilfestellung bleibt sie eine wohl fundierte, aber doch recht leere Aufforderung.

Zuletzt leidet das Buch noch etwas unter spröder, dem Sujet aber angemessenen Sprache. Die Miniaturen selbst sind gut ausgewählt, sind aber für das oben genannte zweite Ziel nicht erschöpfend. Trotz globalhistorischer Ansätze, ist es eine sehr britische Nachrichtendienstgeschichte, die wenn einmal, einen amerikanisch-europäischen Fokus bekommt. Er in der Conclusio kommt der Autor of Whistleblowing und die chinesische Perspektive zu sprechen. Manche wichtige Themen, wie der Vietnamkrieg bleiben außen vor, was aber aufgrund der Wahl der Methode zu vernachlässigen ist in der Gesamtbetrachtung.
Es ist natürlich nicht zu erwarten, dass eine globalhistorische Perspektive durch einen einzelnen Autoren gewährleistet werden kann; und wir wissen alle, dass die Peer Reviews, die einem Werk mitgegeben werden häufig übertrieben und teils am Thema vorbei sind, aber hier mache ich diese Kritik geltend.

Dennoch ist es ein erhellendes Werk, voller Fakten, Quellen und Ansätze, die natürlich nicht immer zu teilen sind historisch. Die Miniaturen sind aus geheimdienstlicher Sicht ausgelegt und nicht immer sind sie auf dem historischen Stand, aber dennoch ist es ein umfassender, etwas spröder und letztlich gelungener Versuch, dessen Lektüre Geduld und Arbeit erfordert, dessen Ecken und Kanten jedoch nicht verschwiegen werden dürfen.

[Gordon Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and comprehensive overview of the use made of, and respect given to, various means of intelligence. Andrew's committment to comprehensiveness means that he begins with stories of spies and intrigue from the Bible and the histories of the ancient peoples. This may seem slow initially but it provides continuities through to the use of intelligence in the Roman Empire, where overwhelming military superiority permitted indifference to understanding the enemy's thinking, or even the topography of his territory. The way in which the inherent secrecy of the discipline tend to allow advances to be lost is seen over and over again, strikingly in the way that George Washington was more familiar with, and lent more importance to intelligence, than Roosevelt was at the start of the Second World War. By the end of the book the story is utterly compelling and leaves a significant insight into contemporary world events.

[André Morais · Rating 4 out of 5]

O primeiro volume do Tratado de Andrew sobre a história da espionagem é a sua consagração como um historiador de grande fôlego e alcance nesta matéria, quer cronologicamente, recuando aos tempos bíblicos, quer geograficamente, abarcando realidades tão diversas como a espionagem asiática ou árabe. Sem prejuízo, a partir de determinada altura, torna-se claramente uma história da espionagem ocidental e, dentro desta, com um particular viés pela espionagem britânica, porventura alavancado no trabalho de Andrew sobre o MI5.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly brilliant synthesis of the oft-neglected history of intelligence - spies, cyphers, assassins, and saboteurs. Andrew's narrative reflects the current historiography - strong on Europe (especially the UK) and the US, with some good bits on China, a smattering of India, and virtually nothing on Africa or Latin America. Hopefully researchers will have more for Andrew to draw on when it comes time for a second edition. Until then, this is excellent.

[Boudewijn]

Notes

2020-04-09: Added to TBR after notification from GR friend Jon Rupinski

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

comprehensive and fascinating history

[Ondrej Urban · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Secret World is a Thick History book you'll feel proud to enter the public transport with. Brushing apart my usual issue of history books - there are just too many people and names for me to follow once we get beyond Caesar, Churchill and a few others - I enjoyed reading about... well, my id wants to say how stupid people were in the past not recognising the importance of intelligence and secret service (irrespective whether these are ancient Romans prefering reading animal innards or more recent politicians too lazy to wrap their head around it), but I'll admit that it being a new concept for many, it might be tough to grasp its benefits straight out.

This is actually a lot of what happens in the narrative - smart people set up spy services and the current head of state semi-ignores them. The author himself uses this as his main motivation to write this book - to provide some perspective about how the history might have been different if the politicians had used their spies better.

You'll read about things you already probably know from your history (if not, it's probably good to read about it) from an unusual perspective. You'll read a lot about when ciphers and secret communication developed - although not much about the basic ideas behind cryptography. Here is where my inner nerd suffered the most - the story of "country A managed to break country B's ciphers" appears again and again but nowhere does the book talk about the ciphers, what was their improvement over the previous versions or how were they broken, except for it having happened thanks to smart mathematicians. A good followup might be Simon Singh's excellent The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography.

The Secret World will allow you to look at politics through the prism of the secret service and it is always good to have a new perspective to look at. apart from that, this is a serious piece of historical literature of the academic kind, so be prepared for that!

[Doug Newdick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to rate. Where Andrew knows his material it's really quite good. But the weakness of this book is in what it doesn't say rather than in what it does. When he talks about 20th century intelligence - especially the intelligence war between the Soviet Union and the USA and UK - Andrew is pretty good and writes well. His coverage of 18th and 19th century European intelligence is also good. However there are just too many glaring gaps for a book that claims to be a history of intelligence in general. Firstly it is very western-centric. It has a reasonable coverage of Ancient Indian and Chinese intelligence, but then these regions are basically not mentioned again. Similarly there is a brief but interesting discussion of intelligence of both sides during the conflicts that came about from the Spanish conquest of the new world., but that is pretty much the last entry on non-Western intelligence in the book. Intelligence of other cultures and nations is completely overlooked. Andrew doesn't even acknowledge that he is not including them. After the end of the 19th century the book is also resolutely anglo-centric. For example, the discussion of French intelligence basically ceases after World War I. German and Soviet intelligence are covered but only in opposition to the Anglo powers.
Andrew also seems to suffer from his privileged position within the western intelligence community. Narratives that would challenge that position are ignored. For example there is a long section on Soviet domestic intelligence covering anti-dissident actions, but not a single mention of equivalent activities by Western intelligence (e.g. the FBI's COINTELPRO activities against Dr Martin Luther King and anti-war protestors). There is no mention of Echelon or surveillance of allies such as when the USA got caught monitoring Angela Merkel's mobile phone. These omissions are so systematic (and the examples are so famous) that it is hard not to suspect a clear bias here. And while we are talking about omissions it annoys me that there is so much talk about decryption in this book but hardly any discussion of encryption!
So, in summary, on what he discusses it's pretty good, but what it misses out is just as important to a real history of Intelligence and limits what I think of it.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest challenge of this book is getting through the first 150 or so pages without mothballing it. This is the first comprehensive history of the the work of secret intelligence to be written and it suffers a little from the nature of the task that Christopher Andrew has set himself. What do we know about secret intelligence in the three millennia preceding the Reformation. The answer, is not a huge amount, and such intelligence that did exist is not that interesting. So having got through the Biblical accounts of spies, Mesopotamian code-writing and various other hints and accounts of secret agents it does feel after a while that we have come across a lot of names, but not a huge amount of interest.

Thankfully, for the persistent reader, this changes considerably once Elizabethan England is reached and personalities and stories can be attached to the runes and cyphers. Readers will perhaps be surprised at the number of high profile artists and writers who have dabbled in espionage from time to time (Aphra Benn being the only spy, as far as we know to be buried in Westminster Abbey). Twentieth Century spycraft was marked by remarkably audacious infiltration and exfiltration as well as a complete inability by Western Governments to comprehend the mindset firstly of totalitarian autocrats and latterly of Islamic extremists. Throughout Christopher Andrew blames a short historical memory for intelligence failings.

The book takes us up to the Twenty First Century terrorist attacks and Wikileaks. Putin does not get mentioned and the book was published before the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Perhaps a second edition will be required in a few years. A fascinating read (at least after page 158).

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite an ambitious work, attempting to describe the history of intelligence throughout world history. It starts from the dawn of civilizations and discusses the use of intelligence throughout the major monotheistic traditions, as well as the great empires of Greece and Rome. Yet, as the work progresses, it mainly sticks to a Euro-Centric/Western World perspective on intelligence. The role of intelligence as described in this book is a mix of intelligence disciplines such as Human Intelligence and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and internal security mechanisms. It tried to describe how intelligence played roles in the various political and military actions during world history. At some points, it could prove world altering. Other times, it offers some interesting stories that could make for great tabloid headlines.

It was surprisingly readable and not as academic and dry as it could have been. Maybe not the greatest audiobook ever, but an interesting book. To try to cover the role of intelligence and its history throughout human history is a tough task and one that offers good insight, but leaves a lot on the table (not as much focus on the Asian empires...but that is as much as matter of access to material as anything else). Perhaps as more information becomes available about other empires, a volume like this could be further expanded. Then again, the nature of intelligence is that it doesn't tend to be very public, so it is perhaps not surprising that this is not a field that has a lot of publications.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A master work from the acknowledged expert on intelligence history.
Christopher Andrew’s four main themes are:
- The neglect of the role of espionage, counter-intelligence and especially signals intelligence by historians and international relations academics;
- The short-term non-historical outlook of decision-makers and analysts;
- The reluctance of intelligence advisors, especially in oppressive regimes, to ‘speak truth to power'; and
- The focus of intelligence agencies serving such regimes on perceived political challenges – at home and abroad - to the regime’s survival rather than threats from other states.
He demonstrates these themes through his survey of intelligence from Moses to today’s international terrorism, dealing with Tudor England, the Congress of Vienna, the Fashoda Incident, the Dreyfus Affair and much else on the way. Despite the length of the book, this inevitably leads to a helicopter view of some historical intelligence episodes and the need to spend time explaining the international politics before drilling down into the role of intelligence in it. Also, the balance is perhaps weighted a little too far towards the USA, the USSR/Russia and Britain at the expense of other ‘players’.
These are minor quibbles about a book that is not only informative and - with the extensive notes - a valuable reference, but also a pleasure to read. And Andrew gives plenty of mentions of the role of his University of Cambridge in the history of intelligence, plus a few to that of Oxford.

[Peter A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary Statement: This work is a huge contribution to the history of intelligence. But this book is not to be read by the faint-hearted. It is clearly a labor of love to write, and for me it was a labor of love to read. But I am glad I did! For intellectual depth and detail this is a 5-star book. For the issues sited below (e.g. Euro-American centric, not enough summary compared with details), I will give it an overall rating of 4.5.

Review

“Twenty-first century intelligence suffers from long-term historical amnesia. Early in the Cold War, the historical Sherman Kent, founding father of US intelligence analysis, complained that intelligence was the only profession without a serious literature: ‘From my point of view, this is a matter of greatest importance. As long as this discipline lacks a literature, its methods, its vocabulary, its body of doctrine, and even its fundamental theory run the risk of never reaching full maturity.’ ” (Kent, The Need for Intelligence Literature). [page 1 of The Secret World: A History of Intelligence.]

In this well researched and detailed book the author sets out to redress this need for a history of “intelligence”, namely the craft, art, approach to learn secrets or disseminate misleading information for strategic or tactical advantage. Based on the perspective provided in this book, you gain a different understanding on many historical events, and how over the many centuries, lessons had to be learned and relearned many times. [Recall – those who do not know and understand history are doomed to repeat it.]

This book has much to commend it. Fortunately, given the size of the book (760 of text), the author writes well. The book has many, many “stories” that give new perspectives on history. The book is extremely well referenced, both in a 58-page bibliography, 55 pages of end notes, and numerous foot notes (bottom of the page) that often are very enlightening and add more detail.

I also want to commend the Introduction to any reader of this book. It provides the high-level ideas in its 11 pages that are then amplified during the next 749 pages. The author moves through time, starting with the bible, and moving to the present in a total of 30 chapters. As the book came into modern time (those I had some additional knowledge of) I found the reading much easier. The final chapter (30) and the conclusion, the authors talks about the current world, facing religious radicals. Here the author brings a couple of points repeatedly: one is the need for a long-term perspective (looking at trends over multiple years or decades – this is often challenging for bureaucracies); one is the need to think out of the box (the failure to do so led to the completely unexpected attack at Pearl Harbor as well as the unexpected attack on 9/11).

There is a great deal I learned from this book, with its many colorful characters and interesting stories. Let me give two examples (from my US perspective):

For example, just in the early history of the United States during the revolutionary war (Chapter 15) we learn that many of Washington’s successes came as a result of having spies throughout the then colonies which informed his decisions (and a near fatal loss when he did not have the intelligence they provided). He was also very good a disinformation, which saved his army during the winter at Valley Forge. He sent inflated reports (to the British) about the size of his army. I also did not know that in Paris one of the key secretaries for Benjamin Franklin was a British spy. And for an interesting story, James Fenimore Cooper became famous as an author because of his novel “The Spy”, inspired by Washington’s spies. In addition, the author mentions Washington’s foresight in establishing a secret service in his terms as President. He also understands that how he set it up would have precedent for future generations. And the author claims that Washington was perhaps the only war president who really appreciated the value of intelligence, and worked on it himself, during the war at least. Finally, for this section, we learn that the “beloved” Benjamin Franklin was a master at disinformation and psychological warfare, for example having invented the story (in 1782, near the end of the revolution) that the “British governor of Canada was paying his Indian allies for American scalps, many of them from women and children.” Whig politicians in Britain used the story to attack the conduct of the war.

As a second example (again focused on United States history), the lead up to the attack on Pearl Harbor combined a President who did not demand a united approach (between Navy and Army: even days Navy decoded, odd days Army decoded, and Sundays did not provide a way to provide intelligence to the White House) to provide him SIGNET (code intelligence), for a lack of resources and focus on Japan, and in short a transgression that ignored Sun Tzu’ warning of never underestimate your opponent (and in this case underestimate based on racial bias). Roosevelt’s lack of interest in SIGNET was different from Churchill’s great interest; he often called up Benchley Park to learn what was going on. But the author attributed both Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s lack of imagination to not even considering an attack on Pearl Harbor. [Note that the 9/11 commission also cited the lack of sharing information across agencies as a major contributing cause of these attacks.]

Thus, in short there is much interesting material in each of the chapters, and a new look at the history we thought we knew. It is also clear that for those leaders who take an interest in intelligence (Churchill, Washington), it served them well. But for those leaders who did not understand it, or paid no attention to it, their countries suffered.

On the other hand, in reading this book one can become overwhelmed by all the characters who fill the pages. And sometimes it is a challenge to see the forest for all of the trees (so, my advice is to read and re-read the Introduction). Also, the author seems to have left out more than half of the world in his history, such as China (although some of this may be the Chinese refusal to shine any daylight into their agencies – this is discussed in the final chapter). Thus, the book is very Euro-US centric, bringing in other countries either in wars or as colonies. Finally, I think the book could emphasize a bit more some of the key themes for a discipline, in each of the chapters.