The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Adam Sisman, can you first tell us about the genesis of the book, The Secret Life of John le Carré? This shorter work serves as a coda to your full-length biography (although it can be read without being familiar with that work). When did you initially have the idea...
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryAlan Bardos Author of Rising TideMunich Wolf, by Rory Clements is set in 1935 Munich. When the body of a young English socialite is found, Kripo detective Sebastian Wolff is called in to solve the politically sensitive case. The...
On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed The National Service (Armed Forces) Act. All men aged between 18 and 41 were required to register for service. My grandfather John James Doherty ‘JJ’, a talented linguist,...
A couple of years ago at the Chalke History Festival, General Sir Simon Mayall, a popular member of the red trouser brigade, Balliol man, and retired military top brass strode onto stage to rapturous applause. Introducing his recently published memoirs he delivered a...
Queen High is CJ Carey’s sequel to her much acclaimed novel Widowland, both books are counter factual dystopian novels in a similar vein to 1984, Fatherland and Brave New World. They are set in a 1950s Britain where Lord Halifax became Prime Minister rather than...
Seizing Eichmann He was walking down the street clutching a large bouquet of flowers, a smiling family man by the name of Ricardo Klement. He was looking forward to celebrating his silver wedding anniversary that evening. When he reached his house on Garibaldi Street...
Jimmy Burns’ biography of Walter Bell, charts the life of one of Britain’s most successful and influential intelligence officers. The fact that Bell is so little known outside of intelligence circles testifies to this success. Walter Bell appears to have been a...
Jimmy Burns, who was Walter Bell? When Water Bell died in January 2004, aged ninety-four, the details of his life-not least of his professional career in the British secret services during a defining period in the history of modern espionage and security-remained a...
At a time when the UK is at war by proxy – providing intelligence, weapons and training to Ukraine – and relying on Article Five of the NATO treaty for our own security, this is a most timely book. The author, Sten Renning, is a Danish professor who has been a student...
Russian spies have moved into cyberspace. Their digital fingerprint is on the 2016 American elections, and all over the cultural wars. They find existing cracks in Western discourse, around Brexit or Black Lives Matter, for example, and seek to rip them still wider....
