Katherine’s Reviews > The Secret World: A History of Intelligence > Status Update

moderately interesting Great Man history of the UK and France with regular comparisons to WWII and Stalin's Russia

Why not frame it in the 20th century and retell the older history when it's relevant, thematically, rather than trying to squeeze an espionage angle into every recognisable era of Western history? That might also have given space for the history of spying in Asia!

Why is it necessary for a history of any given topic to start at the beginning of recorded Western thought and cover every era since, regardless of relevance?

Moses sending men to spy out the Holy Land is not relevant to the modern idea of spying, unless you can draw a direct connection, when you should offer it as flashback.

And the Praetorian Guard's role in changing emperors is certainly irrelevant

It regularly blows my mind how The Bible and Illiad/Odyssey are cited as historical precedent in otherwise rational non-fiction books.