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The Secret World
- Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy
- Length: 36 hrs and 20 mins
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The Secret World
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Summary
The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada.
Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of World War I, the grasp of intelligence shown by US President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and leading 18th-century British statesmen.
In this book, distinguished historian Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia - and shows its relevance today.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kendo nagassaki
- 11-06-21
authoritative history
entertaining and well read history..pacy and all encompassing ..as usual one is aghast at how traitors who damaged this country are allowed to get away scot free..finger as ever point at Roger Hollis as being a traitor ( an auadable version of 'spycatcher ' long overdue)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- O tempora o mores
- 06-01-20
Mispronunciations galore
Most foreign words and names are mispronounced, sometimes very confusingly and always irritatingly. Please record another version!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Alan Coady
- 02-05-19
Thorough
This is a work of monumental scholarship ranging from Moses to the post-9/11 world. At some 36 hours in length, it is not for the faint-hearted and I decided to break off in the middle and refresh the palate with the sorbet of a short novel (Ian McEwan's Nutshell in an excellent narration by Rory Kinnear) so that I could return with renewed vigour to Christopher Andrews thorough revealing of the world of intelligence. Like any book of its span, you'll learn about a lot more than the world of intelligence along the way - no spoilers...
Towards the end, I suddenly wondered why there was no mention of the Lockerbie bombing (Pan Am Flight 103) from 1988 and it altered occurred to me that, at the time of writing, the subject matter may well still have been under the UK's 30-year rule. What led me to this supposition was that later events were covered, but not UK ones.
There are many errors of editing in this work - most in the form of repeated sentences - an easy mistake to make during editing. I'd encourage potential listeners to grin and bear it. Think of the time and cost of editing the average music CD which, at the most, lasts 80 minutes. This book around 27 times that length.
I've since bought Christopher Andrew's Defence of the Realm - the official history of MI5 and am looking forward to reading that.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- BFBG
- 12-04-20
Heavy at times but quality research
Incredible detail in this book tracing the development and history intelligence over centuries.
At time’s it is a challenge as it is so detailed but any student of intelligence will want this as an essential guide and reliable reference book.
Surprised to see so little in the UK period of 1970s - 2010s onwards though. The development of intelligence against terrorism in NI or Soviet counter intelligence might have have added some immediacy to readers.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Peter McMahon
- 08-03-23
Editing poor
Very interesting. The author has a few phrases that he rather mechanically comes back to again and again which i felt could have been better written. Not very well edited.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- dave
- 13-10-19
a great explanation of intelligence over millenia
really enjoyed the explanation of how nations build and use intelligence gathering systems and how well they are able to use them.
couple of Germans words like Dienst could be better read but accents were really good.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- Kassandra
- 29-04-19
Poor editing
This is a good book, so much so that I pushed on despite repeated sentences, badly spliced sentences so that the tone of the reading changes in the middle of a sentence. However, I reported this to Audible and they are looking into it. In the meantime, they helped me download it again and it seemed better after that. So well worth the effort.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jampot
- 12-12-20
Terrible inserted edits
Great book and pretty well read. But the shocking audio edits with somebody else’s voice really jar and they’re not infrequent either. Probably needs to be completely re-read. Happy to offer my services if necessary.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- lawrence Ramsay
- 27-11-23
when he says the history on intelligence he isn't lying!
A really thorough book but so long. It starts with moses and ends at the modern day. After I finished it I felt exhausted but had learned so much.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Webbi
- 02-01-19
Fascinating.
This is a truly intriguing and educational book, with a dry but strong narration. There are some appalling production issues with the recording though, with some sections so badly edited together it completely distracts from what is being said.
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6 people found this helpful