Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (First U.S. Edition)

Andrew, Christopher

ISBN 10: 0307263630 / ISBN 13: 9780307263636

Published by Knopf, New York, 2009

About this Item

New York: Knopf, 2009. First United States Edition, stated. Frst printing Hardcover. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Publisher s original price of $40.00 on front jacket flap. Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A tight, clean copy. Octavo, 1,032 pages with index. A comprehensive narrative history of MI5, tracing the British Security Service from its origins to the modern era through newly opened archives and internal records. Christopher Andrew is the author of numerous works on intelligence history, including The Sword and the Shield, For the President's Eyes Only, and The Mitrokhin Archive.

Seller Inventory # Nonfiction-Sale-Andrew

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (First U.S. Edition)
• Publisher: Knopf, New York
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307263630
• ISBN 13: 9780307263636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism. The book describes how MI5 has been managed, what its relationship has been with government, where it has triumphed, and where it has failed. In all of this no restriction has been placed on the judgments made by the author.

Defend the Realm also adds significantly to our knowledge of many celebrated events and notorious individuals and definitively lays to rest a number of persistent myths. Above all, it shows the place of this previously extremely secretive organization within the United Kingdom. Few books could make such an immediate and extraordinary increase to our understanding of British history over the past century.

About the Author

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.