Buy new:
-18% $21.33
FREE delivery Saturday, October 12 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$21.33 with 18 percent savings
List Price: $26.00
The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
FREE pickup Saturday, October 12 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE pickup Wednesday, October 9. Order within 20 hrs 34 mins.

1.27 mi | ASHBURN 20147

How pickup works
Pick up from nearby pickup location
Step 1: Place Your Order
Select the “Pickup” option on the product page or during checkout.
Step 2: Receive Notification
Once your package is ready for pickup, you'll receive an email and app notification.
Step 3: Pick up
Bring your order ID or pickup code (if applicable) to your chosen pickup location to pick up your package.
In Stock
$$21.33 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$21.33
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Christopher Andrew
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Secret World: A History of Intelligence Paperback – September 10, 2019

by Christopher Andrew (Author)
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$21.33","priceAmount":21.33,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"21","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"33","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vo7s09Ii%2B15AuT6COUPmZrSz0LJomuLDh0gMeWJPFB02KmU4dgklCjIHjI71KCGT1GtEOzLFH5ASWjy3HI5S9I4GbJHZ7Zp%2FztpXj59a3se%2FonYZ5ERUkIU0K2V%2BMqvsqEfIChwLeQIikODenzuXdA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$17.06","priceAmount":17.06,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"06","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vo7s09Ii%2B15AuT6COUPmZrSz0LJomuLDJcKNpBaIyFr3eJT6Y4sdgzLm6%2FsOp62dfTrKqs%2BS8RcSGKg5tOlzGZI7zzXcilUkcb2Oq0WlOuggd3rFVrBNaDwLExi3NApisigQFMw7VwovRkttgTA%2FxLj%2FDIg6TmK4MYwAuOjYAUAwVGbChRztNWOifrJYslW1","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}],"desktop_buybox_group_2":[{"displayPrice":"$21.33","priceAmount":21.33,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"21","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"33","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vo7s09Ii%2B15AuT6COUPmZrSz0LJomuLDh0gMeWJPFB02KmU4dgklCjIHjI71KCGT1GtEOzLFH5ASWjy3HI5S9I4GbJHZ7Zp%2FztpXj59a3se%2FonYZ5ERUkIU0K2V%2BMqvsqEfIChwLeQIikODenzuXdA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"PICKUP","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":2}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

“The first global history of intelligence, remarkable for its scope and delightful for its unpredictable comparisons.”—Richard J. Aldrich, TLS
Previous slide of product details
  1. Part of series
    Henry L. Stimson Lectures
  2. Print length
    960 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Yale University Press
  5. Publication date
    September 10, 2019
  6. Dimensions
    5.7 x 2.1 x 8.9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0300248296
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0300248296
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details
Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Frequently bought together

The Secret World: A History of Intelligence
This item: The Secret World: A History of Intelligence
$21.33
Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
$16.99
Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
$11.89
Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous page
  1. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
    Christopher Andrew
    4.5 out of 5 stars 449
    Paperback
    -43%$16.99
    List: $29.99
    Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).
  2. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the the Third World - Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archi
  3. The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World
  4. Secret Intelligence: A Reader
    Christopher Andrew
    4.6 out of 5 stars 39
    Paperback
    $63.99
    Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
    FREE Shipping by Amazon
  5. The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
    Ben Macintyre
    4.7 out of 5 stars 32,640
    Paperback
    -41%$11.89
    List: $20.00
    Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  6. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
    Tim Weiner
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,784
    Paperback
    -32%$13.69
    List: $20.00
    Get it as soon as Saturday, Oct 12
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
Next page

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
540 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dr. Roy Schreiber
5.0 out of 5 stars Throwing a wide net
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2019
Verified Purchase
When an author throws as wide a net as Christopher Andrew has, a few fish are bound to escape. In this case the ones that evaded him swam in the waters of late 16th and early 17th century England. In the era after the death of Sir Francis Walsingham until Elizabeth I death, rival ministers, the Earl of Essex and Sir Robert Cecil, ran competing private intelligence services. Elizabeth loved it because it cost her nothing. When it came to James I, as Garrett Mattingly revealed in his book, Renaissance Diplomacy, the English ambassador to Spain, Lord Digby arranged to copy all the correspondence to and from his counterpart, the Spanish ambassador to England, Gondomar. To put it another way, the English intelligence network between Elizabeth and the Civil Wars was not always as useless as Mr. Andrew makes it sound.
Those comments should not detract from the overall excellence of this book. Just illustrating with numerous examples that there are a large number of steps between the collection of intelligence and putting the information to good use makes the book worthwhile. As Andrew's historical review shows, time after time, national leaders who have a preconceived notion of what they want intelligence to find are especially likely to ignore any information to the contrary. When they do, the outcome is often disastrous.
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Linda S
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2024
Verified Purchase
Lots of information
Helpful
 Report
ROBERT M. FRANKEL
4.0 out of 5 stars Loaded with details
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
Not an easy read. Very detailed
Helpful
 Report
Gaye
5.0 out of 5 stars The value of intelligence
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2023
Verified Purchase
I would recommend this book to any serious student of war a d political affairs. The details and revelations give the reader serious cause to learn more about how intelligence is handled in their country.
I think I can sum up the basics by saying that there will always be someone whom can profit by knowing and sharing
State secrets and an intelligence service must be aware and constantly alert.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
al
5.0 out of 5 stars The Secret World - A masterpiece of new, old and fascinating intelligence history.
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2018
Verified Purchase
Christopher Andrew has done it again! I believe I had advance notice from a review from Eye Spy Magazine. That is why I bought this book.His earlier work, The Sword and the Shield struck a chord with Cold War revelations and now Andrew rewards those with intelligence interests with a masterpiece. Excellent writing. His chapter on Spies of the Bible, intrigued me deeply. Read the book and understand much of today's world in a better perspective. Well documented. Very high quality paper stock and illustrations . This will be a treasured book for my collection. I hope I can meet Mr Andrew at a book signing or lecture some day . Thanks to a great author and special thanks to the publisher, Yale University Press.
14 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
David Tooke
3.0 out of 5 stars So encyclopedic, there's little depth
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2019
Verified Purchase
I guess im being unfair, criticizing the project not the execution. But IMHo he simply set out to do too much. The result is a sometimes interesting tour d'horizon of everything .... I would like a little depth on fewer topics. But if you want an overal history, I doubt anyone to beat this.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Amazon Shopper #1
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018
Verified Purchase
I just started reading this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. I previously read the author's other work, The Sword and the Shield, Secret History of the KGB, so I knew he was a good author. But this book is especially impressive. There is so much information that I haven't found anywhere else. It begins with ancient history and goes up to the modern era. I just finished the chapter on WW2 and learned so much. I can't begin to imagine how much effort and research the author put into it.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
TruthSeeker
4.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new here.
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2018
Verified Purchase
No late breaking revelations here, but a good read nonetheless. Looks like Professor Andrew is preparing the way to teach a course on Intelligence and this is his textbook.
A well-written, easy to follow story.
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Hilde
5.0 out of 5 stars Fesselnder Einblick in die Welt der Geheimdienste
Reviewed in Germany on July 3, 2024
Verified Purchase
"The Secret World: A History of Intelligence" von Christopher Andrew ist ein absolut faszinierendes Buch für alle, die sich für die Welt der Geheimdienste und deren historische Entwicklung interessieren. Andrew bietet eine detaillierte und gründlich recherchierte Darstellung der geheimen Operationen und Strategien, die die Weltpolitik im Verborgenen beeinflusst haben.

Der Autor schafft es, komplexe Themen verständlich zu machen und verwebt historische Fakten mit spannenden Erzählungen, die das Buch zu einem echten Pageturner machen. Die Tiefe und Breite der behandelten Themen sind beeindruckend und zeigen die Bedeutung und Auswirkungen von Geheimdiensttätigkeiten auf die Weltgeschichte.

Insgesamt ist "The Secret World" ein unverzichtbares Werk für Geschichtsinteressierte und alle, die einen tiefen Einblick in die geheimen Machtstrukturen unserer Welt gewinnen möchten. Ein wahrhaft empfehlenswertes Buch!
Report
Rounak Das
5.0 out of 5 stars A proper world history better than any school textbook
Reviewed in India on June 19, 2024
Verified Purchase
The history of espionage is in turn a political history of the world. Since ancient times espionage has been at the heart of political decision making. This is a comprehensice world history and tells us much more than any school textbook or Wikipedia.
Report
RAFAEL HURTADO
5.0 out of 5 stars Secret service
Reviewed in Mexico on December 24, 2019
Verified Purchase
La terrible y oculta historia del Servicio secreto
Report
J. C. Mareschal
5.0 out of 5 stars An art at which few people are good
Reviewed in Canada on June 27, 2019
Verified Purchase
Intelligence has been used by state governments since they have existed. The secret world is a well-documented and comprehensive history of intelligence from the antiquity to the present. It is full of interesting anecdotes that illustrate the main arguments of the author. It is a very long book, but it never feels long. I learned a lot, was entertained, and thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
At the time where Roman generals relied on oracles to make strategic decisions, the Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote “The art of war” theorizing the use of secret information and spies for gaining advantage and making decisions in war. Julius Caesar, the most successful of Roman generals, relied on spies to get information on its enemies and used ciphers to ensure the secrecy of his messages.
One of the roles of intelligence is to unmask the enemies of the state. It developed in the Christian countries of Europe, where the Inquisition was created to unmask the heretics and obtain confessions with methods that were to later inspire the NKVD and the Gestapo.
But the real scientific bases of intelligence were established, during the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad, by mathematician and philosopher Al-Kindi who established the mathematical bases of cryptanalysis, the deciphering of coded messages.
From there on, intelligence would rely on information received from spies (human intelligence) and information extracted from stolen coded messages (signal intelligence). Following the reformation, intelligence was developed rapidly in England and France, to be used in the religious wars. The theoretical grounds of modern intelligence were established during that period. Walsingham, prime minister of Elisabeth I, relied very much on his talented code breakers, to gain information and defeat the invasion of the Spanish Armada. Walsingham, was not adverse to fabricating intelligence when needed to achieve his objectives, for example, the death sentence against Mary Stuart. Many would later follow his example. Leading Cambridge mathematicians played a decisive role in providing intelligence during the long British civil wars. It was a period that saw many theoretical developments, but deciphering remained an art as much as a science. In France, Cardinal Richelieu saw to the development and use of intelligence to help reduce the last protestant and English strongholds in France. Richelieu also saw to the development of the “cabinet noir” to systematically spy on the citizens and unmask enemies of the state. All the other European countries would follow his example.
Interestingly, after the defeat of the Spanish armada, the Royal Navy had an abysmal record on using intelligence all the way to the end of WWI. Informed by spies of French shipments to the Americans during the war of independence, they failed to intercept one single French ship. Nelson whose fleet was stationed in Naples did not receive news of Napoleon’s sailing to Egypt until it was too late to intercept the French expedition. He later destroyed the French Fleet anyway. The indecisive result of the battle of Jutland was due to a collection of errors by RN’s intelligence who advised Admiral Jellicoe that the German fleet had not left port when they already had, and then failed to advise him on the route followed by the retreating Germans.
The development in radio and cable communications together with theoretical developments in deciphering provided many new opportunities for intelligence collection in the XX century. Remained the question of how to use it. Many anecdotes illustrate the failure of political and military leaders to use rationally the intelligence that they receive. The intelligence community must share the blame as it often feeds only to political leaders the information that their want to hear. The case of Stalin’s refusal to listen to warnings from many agents of the impending German attack is well known as is the failure of US military to take precautions before Pearl Harbor. US intelligence read the Japanese diplomatic messages and knew that Japan was readying for war and that their navy was at sea ready to strike but expected (hoped?) the attack to be directed only on Singapore and the Dutch West Indies. During WWII, German intelligence was a total failure: they only and repeatedly swallowed British disinformation, hook, sinker, and line.
Intelligence and counter-intelligence, as well as covert actions, played a crucial role in the cold war. The NKVD, later KGB, often got the upper hand because they had deeply penetrated the West’s intelligence networks. The KGB was ruthless, never forgetting or forgiving an agent who had betrayed, but never forgetting or abandoning their people, and always bringing them back home for comfortable (by Soviet standards) retirement.
The main development during WWII had been the success of Bletchley Park’s team in breaking the German Enigma code thanks to the work of mathematicians and mostly the introduction of the computer in cryptanalysis. With the ever increasing computer power, given sufficient time there is no code that cannot be broken. Cryptanalysis has changed forever, but the interpretation of intelligence has not changed much: it remains an art at which very few people are good!
Report
Kilt_monster
5.0 out of 5 stars Very scholarly coverage of intelligence and how it has influenced the world
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2019
Verified Purchase
The introduction is really random and the conclusion doesn't conclude anything, but give this book a chance; the middle is great.

The author sets out to both create a broad a history of intelligence and link how intelligence and it's understanding has influenced political decisions. Whether it was a cipher decrypt in the Victorian era, the Grand Fleet knowing the positions of the High Fleet in World War 1 or the US knowing what % price reduction a partner country would go to on an international trade deal, intelligence is illustrated to have played a key role in influencing perceptions and action.

The book sticks rigorously to known facts and documented accounts, and this includes when the picture wasn't rosy; intelligence being ignored or misinterpreted because proud policy makers didn't understand it, or actions being hampered by several intelligence agencies within the same government competing and not talking to one and other. It really makes you think about how perception affects action.

My one criticism is that the writing style is languid and slow in places; repeatedly the author follows a very Old-Etonian style where the introduction to a paragraph repeats all the points in the previous; without this duplication the book could have been 1/3 shorter. However, it's a unique archive and a worthwhile read.
Report