The Second Oldest Profession: The Spy as Bureaucrat, Patriot, Fantasist and Whore - Hardcover
The spy is as old as history but spy services are quite new. Britain founded the first, Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, in dubious circumstances in 1909. Others followed until no country considered itself a nation unless it had a corps of spies.
The biggest and most expensive is America's Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, formed as recently as 1947. The CIA's principle enemy was the Soviet Union's KGB, and the clash of these two giants has been the thrilling stuff of history, novels, films and plays.
In assessing the real role of the spy, Phillip Knightley brilliantly takes all the real characters of the spies themselves - Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly, Richard Sorge, Kim Philby, George Blake, James Jesus Angleton, Ruth Kuczinsky, the Rosenbergs - and answers the crucial question. Did they make any difference to the course of history? Or was spying the biggest confidence trick of our time?
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Review:
"A powerful book, a drawing together of twenty years of research and writing; a critical history of intelligence in the twentieth century" (Sunday Times )
"A brilliant and original book that makes sense for the first time of the world of espionage" (Edward Jay Epstein )
"As readable as any spy novel, the research thorough and extensive, the book gives an observer's view of British and American intelligence that will make it a standard work for a long time to come" (Independent )
From the Publisher:
"A brilliant and original book that makes sense for the first time of the world of espionage" (Edward Jay Epstein )
"As readable as any spy novel, the research thorough and extensive, the book gives an observer's view of British and American intelligence that will make it a standard work for a long time to come" (Independent )
'If Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Mitterand only manage one book this year, they could do a lot worse than pick up Phillip Knightley's and discover what imbecilities are committed in the hallowed name of intelligence.' John le Carr
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherAndre Deutsch
- Publication date1986
- ISBN 10 0233051198
- ISBN 13 9780233051192
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages436
- Rating
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