The riveting story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China
'A masterpiece' CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5
'The book we have all been waiting for' BRENDAN SIMMS, author of Hitler: A Global Biography
'Gripping, authoritative... A vivid account of intelligence skulduggery' Kirkus
Espionage,
election meddling, disinformation, assassinations, subversion, and
sabotage - all attract headlines today about Putin's dictatorship. But
they are far from new. The West has a long-term Russia problem, not a
Putin problem. Spies
mines hitherto secret archives and exclusive interviews with former
agents to tell the history of the war that Russia and the West have been
waging for a century. Espionage dark arts were the Kremlin's means to
equalise the imbalance of arms 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 business as usual,
new means for old ends.
The Cold War started long before 1945.
Western powers gradually fought back after the Second World War,
mounting their own shadow war, deploying propaganda, recruiting
intelligence networks and pioneering new spy technologies against the
Soviet Union. Spies is
an inspiring, engrossing story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery
and honour, 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 weaponise social media against
Western democracies. This fresh reading of history makes Spies
a unique and essential addition to the story of the unrolling conflict
between Russia, China and the West that will dominate the twenty-first
century.
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