From Moses to Edward Snowden: Toward a Global History of Intelligence

Abstract

This massive book reflects more than five decades of research and writing on intelligence agencies and international relations by Christopher Andrew, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Cambridge. Building upon his many previous books about British, American, and Soviet intelligence agencies, in The Secret World Andrew presents a history of intelligence from the men Moses sent “to spy out the land of Canaan” to the revelations about U.S. global surveillance by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.1 The first six chapters focus on the roles of intelligence in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, and the Middle East, while the remaining twenty-four chapters concentrate on Europe from the Inquisition to the present. Roughly half of the text concerns the period since the Napoleonic Wars, with an increasing emphasis on Britain, the United States, and Russia. This hugely ambitious book, based on wide reading and extensive research in British, American, and Russian archives, is enlivened by vivid, engrossing storytelling. It will be of particular interest and value to intelligence professionals, historians of international relations, and scholars concerned with how stories about the past serve to define national identities.