The Secret World: A History of Intelligence Paperback – September 10, 2019

Christopher Andrew has done it again! I believe I had advance notice from a review from Eye Spy Magazine. That is why I bought this book.His earlier work, The Sword and the Shield struck a chord with Cold War revelations and now Andrew rewards those with intelligence interests with a masterpiece. Excellent writing. His chapter on Spies of the Bible, intrigued me deeply. Read the book and understand much of today's world in a better perspective. Well documented. Very high quality paper stock and illustrations . This will be a treasured book for my collection. I hope I can meet Mr Andrew at a book signing or lecture some day . Thanks to a great author and special thanks to the publisher, Yale University Press.

I just started reading this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. I previously read the author's other work, The Sword and the Shield, Secret History of the KGB, so I knew he was a good author. But this book is especially impressive. There is so much information that I haven't found anywhere else. It begins with ancient history and goes up to the modern era. I just finished the chapter on WW2 and learned so much. I can't begin to imagine how much effort and research the author put into it.

Not an easy read. Very detailed

When an author throws as wide a net as Christopher Andrew has, a few fish are bound to escape. In this case the ones that evaded him swam in the waters of late 16th and early 17th century England. In the era after the death of Sir Francis Walsingham until Elizabeth I death, rival ministers, the Earl of Essex and Sir Robert Cecil, ran competing private intelligence services. Elizabeth loved it because it cost her nothing. When it came to James I, as Garrett Mattingly revealed in his book, Renaissance Diplomacy, the English ambassador to Spain, Lord Digby arranged to copy all the correspondence to and from his counterpart, the Spanish ambassador to England, Gondomar. To put it another way, the English intelligence network between Elizabeth and the Civil Wars was not always as useless as Mr. Andrew makes it sound.Those comments should not detract from the overall excellence of this book. Just illustrating with numerous examples that there are a large number of steps between the collection of intelligence and putting the information to good use makes the book worthwhile. As Andrew's historical review shows, time after time, national leaders who have a preconceived notion of what they want intelligence to find are especially likely to ignore any information to the contrary. When they do, the outcome is often disastrous.

I would recommend this book to any serious student of war a d political affairs. The details and revelations give the reader serious cause to learn more about how intelligence is handled in their country.I think I can sum up the basics by saying that there will always be someone whom can profit by knowing and sharingState secrets and an intelligence service must be aware and constantly alert.

I guess im being unfair, criticizing the project not the execution. But IMHo he simply set out to do too much. The result is a sometimes interesting tour d'horizon of everything .... I would like a little depth on fewer topics. But if you want an overal history, I doubt anyone to beat this.

Lots of information

No late breaking revelations here, but a good read nonetheless. Looks like Professor Andrew is preparing the way to teach a course on Intelligence and this is his textbook.A well-written, easy to follow story.