Christopher Andrew is Britain's leading historian of intelligence, professor of modern and contemporary history and chair of the faculty of history at Cambridge University. He is also chair of the British Intelligence Study Group, coeditor of "Intelligence and National Security," former visiting professor at Harvard, Toronto, and the Australian National University, and a regular presenter of BBC Radio and TV documentaries. His thirteen previous books include "The Mitrokhin Archive, "volumes 1 and 2, and a number of groundbreaking studies on the use and abuse of secret intelligence in modern history.
"Absolutely fascinating...a sweeping and highly readable account of
a century of British intelligence. -"Washington Times
"
"This unique publication is definitive and fascinating. Definitive
because, after decades of ill-informed or partial accounts this
book fully defines and describes its subject; no future writer can
ignore it. Fascinating because the fluent clarity of Andrew's
narrative, his eye for colourful individual detail and the sheer
interest of his subjects...this book is essential reading for
anyone with even the slightest interest in intelligence in the
modern period." - Alan Judd, "Spectator
""A scholarly and hugely entertaining account...often
enthralling...Professor Andrew is an entertaining and authoritative
guide through the labyrinth of secret files, with an infectious
fascination for the game of counter-espionage...an important part
of Andrew's achievement is to narrate with clarity an incredibly
complex story in which bizarre and improbable reality often outruns
the most rococo fabrications of the spy novelist...the reader is
left in no doubt that the defence of the realm is being vigorously
conducted by the secret state with all the extraordinary powers at
its command." - Robert McCrum, "Observer
""MI5 is the first major security or intelligence service in the
world to give a historian free range of its records--nearly 400,000
paper files, some with many volumes, say Christopher Andrew with a
touch of exhaustion...it has been well worth the effort. "The
Defence of the Realm "throws new light on an important area of the
running of the country, analysing the changing threats to national
security over the 100 years and discussing the appropriateness or
otherwise of the service's response. But just as interestingly, the
book gets inside the culture of this secret service, showing how
attitudes have changed with those changing threats; how woman have
worked their way from the fringes to the heart of the organisation
and how a se
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