What do you think?
Rate this book
Venice's Secret Service: Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance
Venice's Secret Service is the untold and arresting story of the world's earliest centrally-organised state intelligence service. Long before the inception of SIS and the CIA, in the period of the Renaissance, the Republic of Venice had masterminded a remarkable centrally-organised state intelligence organisation that played a pivotal role in the defence of the Venetian empire. Housed in the imposing Doge's Palace and under the direction of the Council of
Ten, the notorious governmental committee that acted as Venice's spy chiefs, this 'proto-modern' organisation served prominent intelligence functions including operations (intelligence and covert action), analysis, cryptography and steganography, cryptanalysis, and even the development of lethal substances.
Official informants and amateur spies were shipped across Europe, Anatolia, and Northern Africa, conducting Venice's stealthy intelligence operations. Revealing a plethora of secrets, their keepers, and their seekers, Venice's Secret Service explores the social and managerial processes that enabled their existence and that furnished the foundation for an extraordinary intelligence organisation created by one of the early modern world's most cosmopolitan states.
Ten, the notorious governmental committee that acted as Venice's spy chiefs, this 'proto-modern' organisation served prominent intelligence functions including operations (intelligence and covert action), analysis, cryptography and steganography, cryptanalysis, and even the development of lethal substances.
Official informants and amateur spies were shipped across Europe, Anatolia, and Northern Africa, conducting Venice's stealthy intelligence operations. Revealing a plethora of secrets, their keepers, and their seekers, Venice's Secret Service explores the social and managerial processes that enabled their existence and that furnished the foundation for an extraordinary intelligence organisation created by one of the early modern world's most cosmopolitan states.
277 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2019
33 people are currently reading
393 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 26, 2025
Some interesting stuff here, naturally, but I genuinely couldn't tell you what human resource management has to do with Renaissance spies.
June 7, 2020
An intriguing addition to historiography, Ioanna Iordanou's VENICE'S SECRET SERVICE is a fascinating journey for the casual reader, and a powerful enticement for the scholar and the researcher. Advocating for and attempting to pave the way for several paradigm shifts, the book goes beyond being a veritable mine of painstakingly gathered information; it does not just offer an overview of its title subject across a series of thematic chapters, but explores the potentially unique coalescence\combination of factors – from the privileges and limitations of its social classes, to its being a mercantile state to the core, to the social psychology of La Serenissima and the invention of an identity across the generations - that allowed Venice not only to hold its own against powerful enemies for a long time, but also to be a “gatekeeper” of secrets and, arguably, a “necessary nuisance” for much larger states. One could say that the book places the creation and evolution of Venice’s secret service as something that was remarkably ahead of its time, challenging historical scholarship’s standard assessments for the evolution of organizations and the social and technological prerequisites it has adhered to, that have ended up, by definition, to limit the historians’ sight, essentially sieving wonderful possibilities of research away, by saying “no, no, no, THIS and THIS and THIS do not apply to this era\those societies\those peoples” e.t.c.
This book also works beautifully with the reader’s imagination, elucidating the times it explores with numerous events and historical episodes that make the more broad brushstrokes of its vast research acquire a palpable, relatable quality. To this reader, it also, gradually, painted a picture of the infinite interconnectedness of the world it describes; one can marvel at the sheer scope of effort and talent (and inescapable chaos) that allowed Venice’s Council of Ten to reach across both Europe’s and the Levant’s kingdoms, without being in possession of the technological , conceptual and organizational marvels of today. But I think I have said more than enough.
Reading the book is its own reward. Acting on the challenges it poses and pursuing endeavors hitherto unimagined – is its promise.
This book also works beautifully with the reader’s imagination, elucidating the times it explores with numerous events and historical episodes that make the more broad brushstrokes of its vast research acquire a palpable, relatable quality. To this reader, it also, gradually, painted a picture of the infinite interconnectedness of the world it describes; one can marvel at the sheer scope of effort and talent (and inescapable chaos) that allowed Venice’s Council of Ten to reach across both Europe’s and the Levant’s kingdoms, without being in possession of the technological , conceptual and organizational marvels of today. But I think I have said more than enough.
Reading the book is its own reward. Acting on the challenges it poses and pursuing endeavors hitherto unimagined – is its promise.
January 16, 2020
Richly researched, Dr. Ioanna Iordanou’s exposition on the Venetian Secret Service is a really interesting read. The idea that organisational management on a large scale found its genesis in the Industrial Age is truly put to the test. Detailed information about how Venice’s agents were sourced, trained, and instructed, to the ultimate benefit of the Serene Republic, is sometimes startlingly reminiscent of contemporary practices of intelligence gathering and analysis.
Dr. Iordanou argues that Renaissance Venice’s Secret Service stood out from its peers in its organisation and leadership. She also argues that the perceived sanctity of “secrecy”, and the methods by which the Secret Service enlisted the involvement of the wider Venetian populace, brought with it a strong sense of social cohesion that took advantage of Venice’s proverbial commercialism.
Seeing the sophistication and intricate organisation of Venice’s Secret Service from the 13th through the 18th century really put a different spin on the wider history of the era for me. I hope that Dr. Iordanou follows up on the many interesting lacunae she notes throughout the book to give us an even better understanding of this fascinating subject.
Dr. Iordanou argues that Renaissance Venice’s Secret Service stood out from its peers in its organisation and leadership. She also argues that the perceived sanctity of “secrecy”, and the methods by which the Secret Service enlisted the involvement of the wider Venetian populace, brought with it a strong sense of social cohesion that took advantage of Venice’s proverbial commercialism.
Seeing the sophistication and intricate organisation of Venice’s Secret Service from the 13th through the 18th century really put a different spin on the wider history of the era for me. I hope that Dr. Iordanou follows up on the many interesting lacunae she notes throughout the book to give us an even better understanding of this fascinating subject.
May 3, 2020
This was a fascinating book, full of both rich detail and sweeping historical and organizational lessons. Be warned, this is an academic work, not a rollicking tale of derring do or cloak and dagger. It is a thorough examination of Venetian secret service from the perspective of organizational theory and historiography. That said, it provides a complete, and very interesting picture, of how much of what we take for granted in the modern world of espionage and statecraft were pioneered by the Venetians out of necessity as their commercial and maritime empire came under sustained, and ultimately successful, assault by the Ottoman Empire. The academic context is, ultimately, quite helpful in relating the practices of the Renaissance to those of the eras with which we are more familiar though it does require perseverance of the reader. I do recommend this book, if you've read Braudel or Norwich on Venice this is a great complement to those works, and if you have any experience of modern intelligence and the state security apparatus this is a fascinating lesson in how these organizations came to be.
May 24, 2020
In accounts of early modern history, the report from the Venetian ambassador is almost a trope. The great trading city in its lagoon maintained a wide and fine-mazed network of representatives and agents, whose reports have survived as a goldmine for modern historians. Iordanou informs us that these archives were an important source for Venice's contemporary (official) historians as well, and in addition were consciously constructed as a civic monument to the actions of the Serenissima. Which involved, unfortunately, considerable self-censorship, including the elimination from the record of all internal dissent.
This is a thorough investigation of Venice's intelligence gathering network, its origins and evolution. It focuses on organisation and management, rather than individual actions, although there are some fascinating short stories in there. The book has a rather slow and theoretical start, but it is worth persevering as the later chapters have the richer content. The organisation of this book is thematic rather than chronological, which means that it often re-runs over long history in a few sentences, but that serves the purpose of dissecting a complex organisation. I cannot recall reading another systematic effort to analyse an early modern intelligence organisation at this level of detail.
Iordanou argues that Venice's intelligence organisation distinguished itself from that of other states in the period by its structured approach and reliance on bureaucratic management. She makes a good case that this was the result of the specific structure of the Venetian republic, in which many patricians were also merchants, and commercial interests prevailed. Or, if we look at the intelligence services of Francis Walsingham or Philip II, we see organisations that were held together by personal bonds of patronage and loyalty, but if we look at Venice, we see that information was commodified, traded on a secretive marketplace on which state officials acted as buyers and brokers. The case for this is well made.
There are some things I regret about this book. First of all, Iordanou's style is very academic, and not always in a good way. Probably out of an eagerness to sound learned, she too often prefers a complex word where a simple one not only would have sufficed, but would have been better. For example, she informs us that Venice's postal service was created to meet the epistolary needs of the republic. Or, to put it in other words, to distribute letters. (To quote Geralt of Rivia: Who would have thunk?) Not only is this vocabulary needlessly complex, it is jarring, as nowadays the common usage of the word epistolary is to describe a form of literature. Such overwrought language abounds in the book and can be tiring to read.
In fact there is a mild irony there, as Iordanou goes to some length to cite sociological analysis of secrecy as a concept, its function of separating those in the know from those who are not, and its function of confirming the group identity of the inner circle. One wonders whether she fully realises that her use of convoluted language, numerous references to sociological literature, and technical terminology in scare quotes all serve the same purpose. Accidentally, this lends credence to her point that the desire to keep state secrets shaped not only Venice's institutions, but also had a strong social function. For those of us who work in large organisations, the tendency of modern management to miserly hoard information for the sake of it (often counterproductively) is a familiar phenomenon.
More fundamentally, although I see real merit in Iordanou's case that Venice's intelligence service pioneered what we would now call "management", I am skeptic of some of the arguments that she uses, which seem too stubborn. For example, when having to present examples of nepotism and inheritance of skilled jobs, she appears to manoeuvre to present this as part of the natural evolution of a professional organisation with modern management, when it might have been better to concede that it more probably was a fallback onto old, persistent social rules, merely mitigated by recognising the need to school and test such applicants.
A crucial difficulty in building her case is, I think, inherent in the history of intelligence organisations. Iordanou argues successfully that the necessary and elaborate requirements to manage secret documents, to distribute and retrieve cipher keys, and to safely communicate tasks to agents in the field, all pushed Venice to invent precociously modern management techniques, strict bureaucratic controls, and carefully laid out procedures. But its intelligence service also had to deal with the recruitment of foreign informers, with bribery and assassination, and with the intellectual sparring between cryptographers and cryptanalysts: All tasks that inherently resist a procedural approach. The controlling committee of Ten was wise enough to welcome the good fortune of finding venal traitors, or to recognise the talents of rank outsiders. Iordanou acknowledges, accordingly, that while being a cipher clerk became a profession, being a spy did not. Although I suspect that there were enough people who made espionage their career.
Incidentally, of her many repetitive statements, one that I dislike in particular is statement that the Serene Republic often put "unexceptional people in exceptional circumstances", where "unexceptional" is employed by her to denote people of lower social class -- as if those who were not patricians or cittadini of Venice were by definition drab and uninteresting. I don't doubt that many of the paid spies were riff-raff, but here too I find Iordanou's choice of words unfortunate.
Iordanou concludes her book with conclusions organised in four key points, which I will not try to summarise here: It is better to read the book, instead of this review. In my humble enough opinion her conclusions make good sense, even if I wish that she had formulated them more succinctly. In stating them she knocks down some straw men, assertions that only a particularly myopic sociologist or organisational theorist could really believe anyway. I don't find her conclusions that radical. But the point is well taken that the continuity in human organisation reflects the continuity in human nature, and we can always learn from history.
In running their secret service, Venice's Ten were uneasily straddling the need for bureaucratic control and the desire to grab opportunities whenever those arose, the demand for professionalism and the old network of social obligations. This account of their adaptability, inventiveness, and ruthlessness goes a long way to justifying Iordanou's thesis.
This is a book that has the merit of making you think about history. Easily digestible it is not.
This is a thorough investigation of Venice's intelligence gathering network, its origins and evolution. It focuses on organisation and management, rather than individual actions, although there are some fascinating short stories in there. The book has a rather slow and theoretical start, but it is worth persevering as the later chapters have the richer content. The organisation of this book is thematic rather than chronological, which means that it often re-runs over long history in a few sentences, but that serves the purpose of dissecting a complex organisation. I cannot recall reading another systematic effort to analyse an early modern intelligence organisation at this level of detail.
Iordanou argues that Venice's intelligence organisation distinguished itself from that of other states in the period by its structured approach and reliance on bureaucratic management. She makes a good case that this was the result of the specific structure of the Venetian republic, in which many patricians were also merchants, and commercial interests prevailed. Or, if we look at the intelligence services of Francis Walsingham or Philip II, we see organisations that were held together by personal bonds of patronage and loyalty, but if we look at Venice, we see that information was commodified, traded on a secretive marketplace on which state officials acted as buyers and brokers. The case for this is well made.
There are some things I regret about this book. First of all, Iordanou's style is very academic, and not always in a good way. Probably out of an eagerness to sound learned, she too often prefers a complex word where a simple one not only would have sufficed, but would have been better. For example, she informs us that Venice's postal service was created to meet the epistolary needs of the republic. Or, to put it in other words, to distribute letters. (To quote Geralt of Rivia: Who would have thunk?) Not only is this vocabulary needlessly complex, it is jarring, as nowadays the common usage of the word epistolary is to describe a form of literature. Such overwrought language abounds in the book and can be tiring to read.
In fact there is a mild irony there, as Iordanou goes to some length to cite sociological analysis of secrecy as a concept, its function of separating those in the know from those who are not, and its function of confirming the group identity of the inner circle. One wonders whether she fully realises that her use of convoluted language, numerous references to sociological literature, and technical terminology in scare quotes all serve the same purpose. Accidentally, this lends credence to her point that the desire to keep state secrets shaped not only Venice's institutions, but also had a strong social function. For those of us who work in large organisations, the tendency of modern management to miserly hoard information for the sake of it (often counterproductively) is a familiar phenomenon.
More fundamentally, although I see real merit in Iordanou's case that Venice's intelligence service pioneered what we would now call "management", I am skeptic of some of the arguments that she uses, which seem too stubborn. For example, when having to present examples of nepotism and inheritance of skilled jobs, she appears to manoeuvre to present this as part of the natural evolution of a professional organisation with modern management, when it might have been better to concede that it more probably was a fallback onto old, persistent social rules, merely mitigated by recognising the need to school and test such applicants.
A crucial difficulty in building her case is, I think, inherent in the history of intelligence organisations. Iordanou argues successfully that the necessary and elaborate requirements to manage secret documents, to distribute and retrieve cipher keys, and to safely communicate tasks to agents in the field, all pushed Venice to invent precociously modern management techniques, strict bureaucratic controls, and carefully laid out procedures. But its intelligence service also had to deal with the recruitment of foreign informers, with bribery and assassination, and with the intellectual sparring between cryptographers and cryptanalysts: All tasks that inherently resist a procedural approach. The controlling committee of Ten was wise enough to welcome the good fortune of finding venal traitors, or to recognise the talents of rank outsiders. Iordanou acknowledges, accordingly, that while being a cipher clerk became a profession, being a spy did not. Although I suspect that there were enough people who made espionage their career.
Incidentally, of her many repetitive statements, one that I dislike in particular is statement that the Serene Republic often put "unexceptional people in exceptional circumstances", where "unexceptional" is employed by her to denote people of lower social class -- as if those who were not patricians or cittadini of Venice were by definition drab and uninteresting. I don't doubt that many of the paid spies were riff-raff, but here too I find Iordanou's choice of words unfortunate.
Iordanou concludes her book with conclusions organised in four key points, which I will not try to summarise here: It is better to read the book, instead of this review. In my humble enough opinion her conclusions make good sense, even if I wish that she had formulated them more succinctly. In stating them she knocks down some straw men, assertions that only a particularly myopic sociologist or organisational theorist could really believe anyway. I don't find her conclusions that radical. But the point is well taken that the continuity in human organisation reflects the continuity in human nature, and we can always learn from history.
In running their secret service, Venice's Ten were uneasily straddling the need for bureaucratic control and the desire to grab opportunities whenever those arose, the demand for professionalism and the old network of social obligations. This account of their adaptability, inventiveness, and ruthlessness goes a long way to justifying Iordanou's thesis.
This is a book that has the merit of making you think about history. Easily digestible it is not.
Read
September 24, 2025Very uneven. Well researched with a useful bibliography. Some fascinating anecdotes and some insights. Needs an editor to clean up the run on sentences and endless repetition of the same points. 2 stars, 4 stars, occasionally 5 stars? I learned a lot but also got tired of the author preaching their theses. Despite attempts to bludgeon me into submission I still question whether the Venetian Secret service was truly the beginning of modern management practices or simply another example of how Venice in the 15th century overall began to take on many features of a modern capitalist state. Was the purpose of the Ten's management of secrecy really to create an insider loyalty amongst the chancery or...I don't know...to keep secrets that might damage the republic and its commerce?
I'm harsh because there is a really good book lurking in this manuscript. A heavily revised 2nd Edition would be superb. As it is, it is still a great reference.
Here's an example of the sort of thing a good editor could fix:
More specifically, while erecting barriers between those privy to and those unaware of a secret, secrecy simultaneously forestalled the breakdown in communication that would have ensued, had there been no way of concealing privileged knowledge that had to be protected in order to be transferred.
I'm harsh because there is a really good book lurking in this manuscript. A heavily revised 2nd Edition would be superb. As it is, it is still a great reference.
Here's an example of the sort of thing a good editor could fix:
More specifically, while erecting barriers between those privy to and those unaware of a secret, secrecy simultaneously forestalled the breakdown in communication that would have ensued, had there been no way of concealing privileged knowledge that had to be protected in order to be transferred.
September 16, 2024
First and foremost an academic book using the corresponding information-dense language, but a fascinating glimpse into another time. Maybe not the best book to start on Venecian history, but thoroughly interesting. I'm not fully buying into the hypothesis of denunciation as means of taking part in politics if you don't have any other, but that made me think of the rampant denunciation system in the GDR...
The ebook sadly was sloppily edited in parts with chapter titles not formatted as such.
The ebook sadly was sloppily edited in parts with chapter titles not formatted as such.
December 29, 2020
The book is a solid analysis of the Venice Secret Service and its apparatus, on a topic in which historians are stuck with the intentional lack of sources. The approach and detailing of the subject as well as the method of presentation approached, is one of the most important advantages of the paper, the reader being gradually introduced after a well-systematized model in the world of secrets. This model is often supported and helped by the many examples and stories that create an outline of an easy-to-understand story. The six years of research done to compile this paper can be seen in the pages of the book, in the details of the explanations and the multitude of sources that encompass this analysis.
March 29, 2021
Öncelikle normalde böyle bir yorum yapmam ama kapak fotoğrafı bir harika. Cesare Ripa’nın Casus isimli eseriymiş.
Kitap ismi neyi vaadediyorsa veriyor. Rönesans Venedik’inde gizli istihbarat teşkilatının yapısını ortaya çıkarıyor. İstanbul’un ta o zamanlardan casus yuvası olduğunu, rüşvetin Osmanlı’nın en şaşalı zamanlarında bile geçer akçe olduğunu öğrendim ben bu kitaptan. Küçük bir ticaret devletinin nasıl belgeler tuttuğunu da yüzümüze vuruyor. Döneme ilgisi olanlara tavsiye ederim.
Kitap ismi neyi vaadediyorsa veriyor. Rönesans Venedik’inde gizli istihbarat teşkilatının yapısını ortaya çıkarıyor. İstanbul’un ta o zamanlardan casus yuvası olduğunu, rüşvetin Osmanlı’nın en şaşalı zamanlarında bile geçer akçe olduğunu öğrendim ben bu kitaptan. Küçük bir ticaret devletinin nasıl belgeler tuttuğunu da yüzümüze vuruyor. Döneme ilgisi olanlara tavsiye ederim.
January 15, 2022
Scholarly but fascinating (especially if you're interested in cryptography, late Renaissance Venice,
and the more bureaucratic aspects of spycraft) analysis on the Venetian state's central intelligence organization - the Council of Ten - in the 16th and early 17th Centuries. Despite a general lack of what we would refer to as "professional" spies, Venice had an extremely effective, bureaucratic, and centralized "secret service," incorporating mercenary and voluntary spies and informers, secret police, assassins and poisoners, and cryptographers, as well as exerting an impressive amount of influence in diplomatic, military, and civil service (the chancery) branches of government. Unlike pretty much every other intelligence organization of the period, the Venetian secret service identified with the "public good" of the state rather than with a particular nobleman. This was not accidental, as the Venetian government regularly made extreme efforts to insure that no one person or family could seize the reins of power (for example, the Council of Ten included over 30 members, most of whom existed only to keep an eye on the actual 10 voting members). It is also impressive that the Council of Ten managed to get the mass of disenfranchised Venetian citizens to "buy in" and identify themselves with the state security apparatus. This book also incudes a certain amount on the intelligence services employed by the Vatican (and other Italian states), Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
and the more bureaucratic aspects of spycraft) analysis on the Venetian state's central intelligence organization - the Council of Ten - in the 16th and early 17th Centuries. Despite a general lack of what we would refer to as "professional" spies, Venice had an extremely effective, bureaucratic, and centralized "secret service," incorporating mercenary and voluntary spies and informers, secret police, assassins and poisoners, and cryptographers, as well as exerting an impressive amount of influence in diplomatic, military, and civil service (the chancery) branches of government. Unlike pretty much every other intelligence organization of the period, the Venetian secret service identified with the "public good" of the state rather than with a particular nobleman. This was not accidental, as the Venetian government regularly made extreme efforts to insure that no one person or family could seize the reins of power (for example, the Council of Ten included over 30 members, most of whom existed only to keep an eye on the actual 10 voting members). It is also impressive that the Council of Ten managed to get the mass of disenfranchised Venetian citizens to "buy in" and identify themselves with the state security apparatus. This book also incudes a certain amount on the intelligence services employed by the Vatican (and other Italian states), Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
May 5, 2022
Although there are times when the author verges on the over-enthusiastic about her topic, this is an intriguing monograph on how the Venetian Republic came to represent a precocious example of what a state intelligence apparatus could look like. The foundations of this mentality Iordanou places in the pre-existing tendencies of the Republic's government, in terms of the organization and regularization needed to run its empire, and the commitment to secrecy and preemptive action built into the brief of the executive Council of Ten. These preexisting tendencies being built upon when Venice found itself faced with forces bent on throwing down its empire, in the course of the great Ottoman offensive, or the Italian Wars. From there, Iordanou contemplates a wide variety of topics that illustrate the prototypical nature of the Venetian security apparatus; the bureaucratization, the professionalization, the processes of information management, and the indoctrination into a culture of secrecy. The most salient point to me being that the "Ten" were subject to their own regulations. Recommended if you can handle the prose, which occasionally sounds like "management speak," and which tip-toes up to the condition of being prolix.
May 6, 2023
This is a noteworthy effort of studying how the Republic of Venice systematized the collection of intelligence from foreign powers through a variety of means, including encrypted communications and employment of spies-for-hire.
And it’s noteworthy because it includes original sources, with multiple references to original sources from the Archivo dello Stato in Venice; these sources have probably not been used before, and its effort to systematize them to prove the main point, that is, the existence of an organization in the modern sense, created by the Council of Ten for keeping the Serenest republic in the same state of serenity it should always be. It failed to prevent the final demise of the state, but it would probably have had an earlier demise if this had not existed.
Anyway, this is no popular history book; it’s a scholarly work, with multiple references and footnotes, and it’s trying to prove its main point, not provide fodder for Twitter threads. And it focuses on organization and economics, not on other aspects like the mathematics of the cryptography used. So, I would say it’s not for everyone, and not the first or second thing you would read after the Lonely Planet guide.
Worth the read, anyway, and it’s not too thick or reiterative.
And it’s noteworthy because it includes original sources, with multiple references to original sources from the Archivo dello Stato in Venice; these sources have probably not been used before, and its effort to systematize them to prove the main point, that is, the existence of an organization in the modern sense, created by the Council of Ten for keeping the Serenest republic in the same state of serenity it should always be. It failed to prevent the final demise of the state, but it would probably have had an earlier demise if this had not existed.
Anyway, this is no popular history book; it’s a scholarly work, with multiple references and footnotes, and it’s trying to prove its main point, not provide fodder for Twitter threads. And it focuses on organization and economics, not on other aspects like the mathematics of the cryptography used. So, I would say it’s not for everyone, and not the first or second thing you would read after the Lonely Planet guide.
Worth the read, anyway, and it’s not too thick or reiterative.
August 28, 2023
Is this a thoughtful, well-researched and well-analyzed book about the centralization, organization and management of one of the world's first true spy agencies? Yes, it absolutely is.
Is it a book that I enjoyed? No, unfortunately it is not. I enjoy and engage in a more narrative approach to history, so the over-arching scope and discussion of managerial dissemination and organizational methodology did not resonate with me.
That should not take anything away from the author or the work itself. It is a deep dive into the methods and bureaucracy of the Venetians and especially the Council of Ten as they try to defend and maintain a ebbing empire at the dawn of the early-modern age. I would have liked more anecdotes of the actual espionage, or at least a discussion of whether or not any of it was well executed or even effective (the first mention of that idea comes about 5 pages before the end). But that wasn't the purpose or angle of this book.
At the end of it, it left me wanting quite a bit more, but was interesting for what it was. Just know what you're getting into.
Is it a book that I enjoyed? No, unfortunately it is not. I enjoy and engage in a more narrative approach to history, so the over-arching scope and discussion of managerial dissemination and organizational methodology did not resonate with me.
That should not take anything away from the author or the work itself. It is a deep dive into the methods and bureaucracy of the Venetians and especially the Council of Ten as they try to defend and maintain a ebbing empire at the dawn of the early-modern age. I would have liked more anecdotes of the actual espionage, or at least a discussion of whether or not any of it was well executed or even effective (the first mention of that idea comes about 5 pages before the end). But that wasn't the purpose or angle of this book.
At the end of it, it left me wanting quite a bit more, but was interesting for what it was. Just know what you're getting into.
July 26, 2021
Öncelikle kitap kapağını öveceğim. Kronik Kitap kendilerini keşfettiğim günden bu yana hem harika yayınlar yapıyor hem de müthiş kitap kapağı dizaynları ve baskı kalitesi ve diğer içeriğe ait olmayan unsurlarıyla beni etkiliyor. Tekrar teşekkürler ve tebrikler. Ülkemizin İş Bankası, Can Yayınları, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, Kırmızı Kedi, Sel, Metis gibi yayın evlerine ek sizin gibi bir yayıncıya ihtiyacı vardı.
İçeriğe gelecek olursak, sanki bir doktora tezi ya da bu alanda çalışan birisiniz de bir akademik kaynak okuyor gibisiniz kitabı okurken. Ben de bunun bilincindeydim ama bir akademisyen tarafından yazılmış olması yer yer ağır, uzun cümleli ve ağdalı, terimlerle dolu dili şaşırtmadı ve zaman zaman yormadı değil. Ancak çok faydalı bilgiler öğrendim. Aralarda yer alan anekdotları ve teoriyi destekleyen yaşanmış hikaye ve örnekler olayı daha da ilgi çekici yaptı. Özellikle ilgisi olmayanları sıkar. Bilginize
Keyifli okumalar
İçeriğe gelecek olursak, sanki bir doktora tezi ya da bu alanda çalışan birisiniz de bir akademik kaynak okuyor gibisiniz kitabı okurken. Ben de bunun bilincindeydim ama bir akademisyen tarafından yazılmış olması yer yer ağır, uzun cümleli ve ağdalı, terimlerle dolu dili şaşırtmadı ve zaman zaman yormadı değil. Ancak çok faydalı bilgiler öğrendim. Aralarda yer alan anekdotları ve teoriyi destekleyen yaşanmış hikaye ve örnekler olayı daha da ilgi çekici yaptı. Özellikle ilgisi olmayanları sıkar. Bilginize
Keyifli okumalar
November 23, 2020
Bu kitap proto-modern Rönesans dönemi Venedik İmparatorluğunun dış siyasi güvenliğinin çok geniş kapsamlı bir araştırmasını içeriyor. Ayrıca verilen örnekler oldukça ayrıntılı ve ilgi çekici. Siber güvenlikle ilgilenenler için de mükemmel bir kitap. Kriptoloji biliminin bu dönem içerisindeki gelişimini açıklıyor. Ayrıca o dönem tasarlanmış poly-alphabetic(vigenere den önce) ve erken açık anahtarlı kriptografi yöntemleri gösterilmiştir.
Ayrıca toplum ve devlet ilişkisi gözlemlenebilmektedir.
Kitap kapsamlı olmakla beraber hiç bir şekilde sıkılma hissi yaratmadı. Örnekler oldukça canlı ve ilginçti. Ayrıca her bölüm sonunda bir özet vardı. Ayrıca son söz kitabın sürecini güzel bir şekilde özetleyip dört adet çıkarım ortaya koymuştur.
Ayrıca toplum ve devlet ilişkisi gözlemlenebilmektedir.
Kitap kapsamlı olmakla beraber hiç bir şekilde sıkılma hissi yaratmadı. Örnekler oldukça canlı ve ilginçti. Ayrıca her bölüm sonunda bir özet vardı. Ayrıca son söz kitabın sürecini güzel bir şekilde özetleyip dört adet çıkarım ortaya koymuştur.
May 16, 2022
Konuya ilgi duyanlar için eğlenceli olabilir ancak Kriptoloji tarihi dışında yeni bir şey öğrenemedim ben kitaptan,tahmin edilebilir şeylerden ibaret. Unutmadan kitabın kullandığı kaynaklar sayesinde Osmanlı elçisi Cordoani Mustafanın vebadan değil suikastle öldürüldüğü ortaya çıktı
February 8, 2020
Fascinating story/history.
Written as a academic work so inaccessible at times to a casual reader.
Written as a academic work so inaccessible at times to a casual reader.
March 13, 2021
a true masterpiece
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews