A Spy Named Orphan

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A Spy Named Orphan

Author : Roland Philipps
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 9781784703578
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis A Spy Named Orphan by : Roland Philipps

Download or read book A Spy Named Orphan written by Roland Philipps and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy, driven by passionately held beliefs, whose betrayal and defection to Moscow reverberated for decades.Christened 'Orphan? by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was the perfect spy and Britain?s most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge amounts of top-secret intelligence, an international code-breaking operation was rapidly closing in on him. Moments before he was unmasked, Maclean vanished.Drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, Roland Philipps now tells this story for the first time in full. He unravels Maclean?s character and contradictions- a childhood that was simultaneously liberal and austere; a Cambridge education mixing in Communist circles; a polished diplomat with a tendency to wild binges; a marriage complicated by secrets; an accelerated rise through the Foreign Office and, above all, a gift for deception. Taking us back to the golden age of espionage, A Spy Named Orphanreveals the impact of one of the most dangerous and enigmatic Soviet agents of the twentieth century, whose actions heightened the tensions of the Cold War.'This biography first grips and then lingers long in the mind. It is a page-turner of the most empathetic kind? Guardian'Superb? William Boyd

A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets

Author : Roland Philipps
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393608581
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets by : Roland Philipps

Download or read book A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets written by Roland Philipps and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[A] lively and beautifully engineered biography." —John Banville, New York Review of Books Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring, yet the extent of this shrewd, secretive man’s betrayal has never fully been explored. Drawing on formerly classified files, A Spy Named Orphan documents the extraordinary story of a model diplomat leading a chilling double-life until his exposure and defection to the USSR. Philipps describes a man prone to alcoholic rages, who rose through the ranks of the British Foreign Office while secretly transmitting through his Soviet handlers reams of diplomatic and military intelligence on the atom bomb and the shape of the postwar world. A mesmerizing tale of blind faith and fierce loyalty alongside dangerous duplicity and human vulnerability, Philipps’s narrative will stand as the definitive account of the man codenamed "Orphan."

The Last Cambridge Spy

Author : Chris Smith
Publisher : The History Press
ISBN 13 : 0750991720
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (59 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Cambridge Spy by : Chris Smith

Download or read book The Last Cambridge Spy written by Chris Smith and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘A riveting read.’ – Professor Richard Aldrich ‘The Last Cambridge Spy is not just a fascinating, well-paced book about an interesting individual, but it also invites us to re-appraise the very idea of the “Cambridge spy ring”.’ – Sir Dermot Turing John Cairncross was among the most damaging spies of the twentieth century. A member of the infamous Cambridge Ring of Five, he leaked highly sensitive documents from Bletchley Park, MI6 and the Treasury to the Soviet Union – including the first atomic secrets and raw decrypts from Enigma and Tunny that influenced the outcome of the Battle of Kursk in 1943. In 2014, Cairncross appeared as a secondary, though key, character in the biopic of Alan Turing’s life, The Imitation Game. While the other members of the Cambridge Ring of Five have been the subject of extensive biographical study, Cairncross has largely been overlooked by both academic and popular writers. Despite clear interest, he has remained a mystery – until now. The Last Cambridge Spy is the first ever biography of John Cairncross, using recently released material to tell the story of his life and espionage.

Spies

Author : Calder Walton
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1668000717
Total Pages : 688 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (68 download)

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Book Synopsis Spies by : Calder Walton

Download or read book Spies written by Calder Walton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreign Policy Best Book of 2023 Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2023 The “riveting” (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China. Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin’s means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing “unprecedented” about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends. The Cold War started long before 1945. But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is a “deeply researched and artfully crafted” (Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the US President) story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks being launched woefully unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of Eastern superpowers: Russia’s past and present and the global ascendance of China. Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America’s clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provided key lessons for countering China today. This “authoritative, sweeping” (Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embers of War) history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century.

Agent Molière

Author : Geoff Andrews
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1838606769
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (386 download)

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Book Synopsis Agent Molière by : Geoff Andrews

Download or read book Agent Molière written by Geoff Andrews and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Spies continue to fascinate - but one of them, John Cairncross, has always been more of an enigma than the others. He worked alone and was driven by his hostility to Fascism rather than to the promotion of Communism. During his war-time work at Bletchley Park, he passed documents to the Soviets which went on to influence the Battle of Kursk. Now, Geoff Andrews has access to the Cairncross papers and secrets, and has spoken to friends, relatives and former colleagues. A complex individual emerges – a scholar as well as a spy – whose motivations have often been misunderstood. After his resignation from the Civil Service, Cairncross moved to Italy and here he rebuilt his life as a foreign correspondent, editor and university professor. This gave him new circles and friendships – which included the writer Graham Greene – while he always lived with the fear that his earlier espionage would come to light. The full account of Cairncross's spying, his confession and his dramatic public exposure as the 'fifth man' will be told here for the first time, while also unveiling the story of his post-espionage life.

The Blunt Affair

Author : Jonathan Bolton
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1526148455
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis The Blunt Affair by : Jonathan Bolton

Download or read book The Blunt Affair written by Jonathan Bolton and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The case of the Cambridge spies has long captured the public’s attention, but perhaps never more so than in the wake of Anthony Blunt’s exposure as the fourth man in November 1979. With the Cold War intensifying, patriotism running high during the Falklands War and the AIDS crisis leading to widespread homophobia, these notorious traitors were more relevant than ever. This book explores how they were depicted in literature, television and film throughout the 1980s. Examining works by an array of distinguished writers, including Dennis Potter, Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard and John le Carré, it sheds new light on the affair, asking why such privileged young men chose to betray their country, whether loyalty to one’s friends is more important than patriotism and whether we can really trust the intelligence services.

Two Minutes to Midnight

Author : Roger Hermiston
Publisher : Biteback Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1785906550
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (859 download)

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Book Synopsis Two Minutes to Midnight by : Roger Hermiston

Download or read book Two Minutes to Midnight written by Roger Hermiston and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR – 'a dark remembrance of 1953, when nuclear annihilation was only the press of a button away'. January 1953. Eight years on from the most destructive conflict in human history, the Cold War enters its deadliest phase. An Iron Curtain has descended across Europe, and hostilities have turned hot on the Korean peninsula as the United States and Soviet Union clash in an intractable and bloody proxy war. Former wartime allies have grown far apart. An ageing Winston Churchill, back in Downing Street, yearns for peace with the Kremlin – but new American President Dwight Eisenhower cautions the West not to drop its guard. Joseph Stalin, implacable as ever, conducts vicious campaigns against imaginary internal enemies. Meanwhile, the pace of the nuclear arms race has become frenetic. The Soviet Union has finally tested its own atom bomb, as has Britain. But in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the United States has detonated its first thermonuclear device, dwarfing the destruction unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the first time, the Doomsday Clock is set at two minutes to midnight, with the risk of a man-made global apocalypse increasingly likely. As the Cold War powers square up, every city has become a potential battleground and every citizen a target. 1953 is set to be a year of living dangerously.

The Cold War [5 volumes]

Author : Spencer C. Tucker
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1440860769
Total Pages : 2392 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cold War [5 volumes] by : Spencer C. Tucker

Download or read book The Cold War [5 volumes] written by Spencer C. Tucker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 2392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

Spies, Lies, and Exile

Author : Simon Kuper
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1620973766
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Spies, Lies, and Exile by : Simon Kuper

Download or read book Spies, Lies, and Exile written by Simon Kuper and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait”—The Wall Street Journal For fans of John le Carré and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War’s most notorious spies “Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he?” —John le Carré Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake’s. After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War II, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero’s welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations—including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history—only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind. Much of Blake’s career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy’s death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.

Researching National Security Intelligence

Author : Stephen Coulthart
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1626167044
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Researching National Security Intelligence by : Stephen Coulthart

Download or read book Researching National Security Intelligence written by Stephen Coulthart and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers in the rapidly growing field of intelligence studies face unique and difficult challenges ranging from finding and accessing data on secret activities, to sorting through the politics of intelligence successes and failures, to making sense of complex socio-organizational or psychological phenomena. The contributing authors to Researching National Security Intelligence survey the state of the field and demonstrate how incorporating multiple disciplines helps to generate high-quality, policy-relevant research. Following this approach, the volume provides a conceptual, empirical, and methodological toolkit for scholars and students informed by many disciplines: history, political science, public administration, psychology, communications, and journalism. This collection of essays written by an international group of scholars and practitioners propels intelligence studies forward by demonstrating its growing depth, by suggesting new pathways to the creation of knowledge, and by identifying how scholarship can enhance practice and accountability.

A Spy Among Friends

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0804136645
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis A Spy Among Friends by : Ben Macintyre

Download or read book A Spy Among Friends written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle. Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin “[A Spy Among Friends] reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time. Every word uttered in confidence to Philby made its way to Moscow, sinking almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years and costing hundreds of lives. So how was this cunning double-agent finally exposed? In A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre expertly weaves the heart-pounding tale of how Philby almost got away with it all—and what happened when he was finally unmasked. Based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files and told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, A Spy Among Friends is a fascinating portrait of a Cold War spy and the countrymen who remained willfully blind to his treachery. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Shelf Awareness

Love and Deception

Author : James Hanning
Publisher : Corsair
ISBN 13 : 1472155939
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (721 download)

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Book Synopsis Love and Deception by : James Hanning

Download or read book Love and Deception written by James Hanning and published by Corsair. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'James Hanning's book is excellent . . . The fascination of Love & Deception lies in the meticulously detailed account it gives of Philby's strange half-life in Beirut, where he was banished in 1956' Guardian Love & Deception is the extraordinary story of how Eleanor, an able, cultured American living in the espionage hot spot of 1950s Beirut, fell in love with the kindest of men. Unknown to her, that man, Kim Philby, was under suspicion by the British and US intelligence services of having secretly signed up to help the Russians fight fascism in the 1930s, and of remaining in their pay at the height of the Cold War. Despite his mysterious past, Eleanor adored and married Philby, but the strength of their love was challenged as the net steadily closed in on him. The outline of Philby's story is familiar to many, but Love & Deception breaks remarkable new ground. Through extensive research, Hanning produces an eye-opening tale of friendship, politics, love and loyalty. 'Fascinating and superbly researched' TLS 'I am always gripped by the Philby story and James Hanning succeeds in putting new flesh on this fascinating period in his double life . . . I thoroughly recommend it' Marina Hyde 'If ever there was a cautionary tale about the true costs of male privilege in the higher echelons of the British establishment - this is it' Amanda Foreman

Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949

Author : Martin McCauley
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000406245
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949 by : Martin McCauley

Download or read book Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949 written by Martin McCauley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-07 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its fifth edition, Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949 covers the formative years of the momentous struggle that developed between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. This accessible text explains how the Cold War originated and developed between 1941 and 1949 and involved the entire globe, with proxy wars being fought much to the detriment of the developing world. The fifth edition is revised, updated and expanded to include new material on topics such as the efforts of the Soviet Union, the UK and France to prevent the outbreak of World War II; the reasons behind the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact; atomic diplomacy and the role played by Soviet spies in the West; the culture wars and propaganda; Churchill’s efforts to entice the US into the war against Germany; the role of Hollywood in promoting intervention; the US’s insouciance concerning the danger of a Japanese attack; the astonishing success of the Soviet Union in recruiting high level American officials to provide invaluable information on politics, science, engineering and avionics; and more. Incorporating the most recent scholarship, Martin McCauley provides students with an invaluable introduction to a fascinating period that shaped today's world. The book is an important staple for courses on modern global history and international affairs.

Secret City

Author : James Kirchick
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
ISBN 13 : 1627792333
Total Pages : 607 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (277 download)

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Book Synopsis Secret City by : James Kirchick

Download or read book Secret City written by James Kirchick and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 Named one of Vanity Fair's “Best Books of 2022” “Not since Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history.” —George Stephanopoulos Washington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick’s Secret City. For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power. Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of “the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,” James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century. Cultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War II–era gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a “homosexual ring” controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory. Magisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.

War in the Shadows

Author : Patrick Marnham
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1786078104
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis War in the Shadows by : Patrick Marnham

Download or read book War in the Shadows written by Patrick Marnham and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘One of our very best writers on France.’ Antony Beevor After publishing an acclaimed biography of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance, Patrick Marnham received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to have worked for British Intelligence during the war. The ex-spy praised his book but insisted that he had missed the real ‘treasure’. The letter drew Marnham back to the early 1960s when he had been taught French by a mercurial woman – a former Resistance leader, whose SOE network was broken on the same day that Moulin was captured and who endured eighteen months in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Could these two events have been connected? His anonymous correspondent offered a tantalising set of clues that seemed to implicate Churchill and British Intelligence in the catastrophe. Drawing on a deep knowledge of France and original research in British and French archives, War in the Shadows exposes the ruthless double-dealing of the Allied intelligence services and the Gestapo through one of the darkest periods of the Second World War. It is a story worthy of Le Carré, but with this difference – it is not fiction. ‘A melange of Le Grand Meaulnes and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It is unforgettable.’ Ferdinand Mount, TLS, Books of the Year ‘A masterly analysis, impeccably presented.’ Allan Mallinson, Spectator ‘Fascinating… Marnham has a vast and scholarly knowledge of this often treacherous world.’ Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review

The Secret War Against the Arts

Author : Richard Knott
Publisher : Pen and Sword History
ISBN 13 : 1526770326
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret War Against the Arts by : Richard Knott

Download or read book The Secret War Against the Arts written by Richard Knott and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Reveals the extent of MI5’s methodical and implacable investigation into the lives of such people as the writer George Orwell.” —UK Historian During the 1930s, the British intelligence agencies became increasingly concerned about Communist influence in the country. They reacted by spying on thousands of ordinary British citizens. Amongst them were many artists and writers who, in tune with “the spirit of the times,” had become sympathetic to left-wing causes, most notably the Spanish Civil War. Telephones were bugged, post opened, homes searched and people encouraged to report suspicious behavior—all reminiscent of the East German Stasi. This book has been written in the light of previously secret files, now available in The National Archives, which indicate the extent of the surveillance and the consequences for those being watched. It focuses on a significant number of writers and artists who were either members of the Communist Party of Great Britain or were suspected of being “fellow travelers.” They include: George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Olivia Manning, Storm Jameson, W.H. Auden, Sylvia Townsend Warner, J.B. Priestley, Doris Lessing, Julian Trevelyan, Randall Swingler, Paul Hogarth, Clive Branson, and James Boswell. The Secret War Against the Arts is a unique account of a dramatic period of modern history, from the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War to the Hungarian uprising in 1956, revealing how MI5 was systematic, unrelenting and uncompromising in its pursuit of artists and writers throughout the period, while failing to see the much more disturbing treachery of others—Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, for example. “A lively and thought-provoking book.” —Penniless Press

Esmond and Ilia

Author : Marina Warner
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 168137644X
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (813 download)

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Book Synopsis Esmond and Ilia by : Marina Warner

Download or read book Esmond and Ilia written by Marina Warner and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By one of the finest English writers of our time, a luminous memoir that travels from southern Italy to the banks of the Nile, capturing a lost past both personal and historical. Marina Warner’s father, Esmond, met her mother, Ilia, while serving as an officer in the British Army during the Second World War. As Allied forces fought their way north through Italy, Esmond found himself in the southern town of Bari, where Ilia had grown up, one of four girls of a widowed mother. The Englishman approaching middle age and the twenty-one-year-old Italian were soon married. Before the war had come to an end, Ilia was on her way alone to London to wait for her husband’s return and to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. Ilia begins to learn the world of cricket, riding, canned food, and distant relations she has landed in, while Esmond, in spite of his connections, struggles to support his wife and young daughter. He comes up with the idea of opening a bookshop, a branch of W.H. Smith’s, in Cairo, where he had spent happy times during the North African campaign. In Egypt, however, nationalists are challenging foreign influences, especially British ones, and before long Cairo is on fire. Deeply felt, closely observed, rich with strange lore, Esmond and Ilia is a picture of vanished worlds, a portrait of two people struggling to know each other and themselves, a daughter’s story of trying to come to terms with a past that is both hers and unknowable to her. It is an “unreliable memoir”—what memoir isn’t?—and a lasting work of literature, lyrical, sorrowful, shaped by love and wonder.