British Intelligence History

For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth, Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia, fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized by Kipling. When play first began the...

“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished...

In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a...

From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women's vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running. In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ENTITLED, 'THE MOST DEVASTATING ROYAL BIOGRAPHY EVER WRITTEN', DAILY MAIL THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A Daily Mail Royal Book of the Year, 2021 'Darkly compelling...hundreds of eye-popping details...Gripping ... damning portrait of the Windsors' Daily Mail 'Book of...

Drawing on hundreds of declassified official files - many of them previously unpublished - Tim Tate uncovers the largely unknown history of more than 70 British traitors who were convicted, mostly in secret trials, of working to help Nazi Germany win the war, and several hundred British Fascists who were interned without trial on evidence that they were working on behalf of the enemy. Four were condemned to death; two were executed.

While Pilot Officer Geoffrey Myers was caught up in the Battle of Britain, his French wife and two half-Jewish children were trapped in increasingly dangerous circumstances in Nazi-occupied France. In intimate, frank, and powerful letters, Myers kept a record of his war, his deep love for his...

It’s aliiiiiiiive! The New York Times bestselling authors of My Lady Jane present an electric, poetic, and (almost) historical tale of the one and only Mary Shelley—perfect for YA fantasy and romance readers. Mary may have inherited the brilliant mind of her late mother, Mary Wollstonecraft...

The Long War by legendary author and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and award-winning science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter follows the adventures and travails of heroes Joshua Valiente and Lobsang in an exciting continuation of the extraordinary journey begun in their New York Times...

From the author of the acclaimed international bestseller The Long Flight Home, comes a riveting World War II-era story of courage and daring, as a young woman is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network. London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms...

In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a...

Fishers of Men is the true account of secret operations in Northern Ireland carried out by the British Army's most clandestine unit. It tells the unique story, through Rob Lewis's own extraordinary experiences, of an essential instrument in the fight against terrorism, that of covert...

Recruited by British Intelligence to infiltrate the IRA and Sinn Féin during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles, they were ‘agents of influence’. With codenames like INFLICTION, STAKEKNIFE, 3007 and CAROL, these spies played a pivotal role in the fight against Irish republicanism...

Brought to you by Penguin. Two leading thinkers present alternative answers to one of the most difficult and divisive questions of our times: Is free speech under threat? Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, the leading free expression organisation, argues that alongside the necessary and...