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Following on from the success of Brief Lives, published in 1997, and Political Lives, Stage and Screen Lives, and Literary Lives, published in 2001, Secret Lives, which will publish alongside three other titles, Royal Lives, Military Lives, and Musical Lives, will be a welcome addition to the series to anyone with an interest in the secret underworld of political and military intrigue. Eminent historian and former wartime intelligence officer, M. R. D. Foot has made a personal selection of around 100 mini-biographies taken from the archives of the Dictionary of National Biography of some of the men and women who have in their lifetime made themselves famous (or made themselves infamous) working in secret intelligence.
Viewed individually each article in this collection is a permanent historic record of a life in a particular period in time, from the times of Guy Fawkes to the end of the last century. Viewed as a collection the biographies allow for a fascinating tour through the history of secret intelligence.
Entries include:
Benedict Grinsburg on Edith Cavell
Christopher Andrew on Sir M. G. S. Cumming
Sidney Lee on Guy Fawkes
Peter Wilkinson on Sir Colin McVean Gubbins
Nigel Clive on 'Kim' Philby
M. R. D. Foot on Violette Szabo
Sidney Lee on Sir Francis Walsingham
John Hamilton on William Windham
M. R. D. Foot on Greville Maynard Wynne
- Sales Rank: #251254 in Books
- Published on: 2003-01-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.40" h x .90" w x 8.50" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 384 pages
Review
`Review from previous edition immensely enjoyable' Plays International (reviewing Stage and Screen Lives)
`handsome, well laid out' The Scotsman (reviewing Literary Lives and Stage and Screen Lives)
`they fill you with wonder' The Express (reviewing Brief Lives)
`The most sustained browsing among the year's reference books.' The Times (reviewing Brief Lives)
`If you should know the DNB already, you'll know how stylish most of the writing is. If you don't, the book would make an excellent introduction.' Sunday Telegraph (reviewing Brief Lives)
`this is a fascinating and highly readable book...it deserves the widest possible readership' Garrick Alder, Fortean Times Review from previous edition immensely enjoyable
`this is a fascinating and highly readable book, full of insight: anyone wanting to know more about the sevret services ought to read it. And anyone looking for a reference book on some of the most famous names in intelligence need look no further...this book deserves the widest possible readership.' Garrick Alder, Fortean Times
About the Author
M. R. D. Foot, CBE, is an historian and former wartime intelligence officer. He was Professor of Modern History at Manchester University (1967-73) and has been involved with a number of works, including writing many books on the SOE and editing the first four volumes of the Gladstone Diaries. He was also Consultant Editor of The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995, paperback edition 2001).
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
A Peek into the Pot
By F. S. L'hoir
"Secret Lives: Lifting the Lid on the Worlds of Secret Intelligence" comprises a series of selected signed articles by different authors from the British Dictionary of National Biography. Following rubrics of family, education, public life, private life, each entry relates the life of one of 90 (mostly) men who participated in the "world of secret intelligence." The only requirements governing the book are that all the subjects must be both British and dead; furthermore, the style of the book must be "business like." Thus one finds none of the wild speculation, sensationalism, or tedious moralizing that mars some current books on espionage. The sober attitude of the articles, however, by no means renders them dull. Each entry presents fascinating background details of the lives of those who spied either for or against their country--in some cases, both.
The biographies, ranging from the 15th through the 20th centuries, are written either by historians or those, including professional intelligence officers, who were acquainted with the subjects of the biographies. Despite the evenhandedness of the narratives, one must remember that they may be limited by the dictates of official secrets as well as the perspective of each author, which may or may not be objective (e.g., One might wonder whether, in the interests of history, the account of Roger Hollis ought to have been written by an historian who was not connected so closely to the official investigation of Hollis as was Dick Goldsmith White, who bases his narrative on both "private information" and "personal knowledge."). The reader is also left to wonder about the identity of the one anonymous author in the book, who pens a lucid and informative account of the life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (C of SIS during WW II). Just one of the book's little mysteries to intrigue the reader!
Understandably, "Secret Lives" is selective, but one wonders why certain people have been included and others left out. For example, why, since it covers such 16th-17th-century spies as Anthony Babington and Guy Fawkes, does the book omit Sir Francis Walsingham (spymaster of Elizabeth I)? Why, for that matter, does it omit novelist Aphra Behn (who spied on the Dutch for Charles II)? As for the twentieth century, why omit Felix Cowgill and Valentine Vivian of SIS, or Guy Liddell and Peter Wright of MI5? All played major roles in intelligence during World War II or the Cold War (One assumes [and hopes] that SIS agents Graham Greene and Malcolm Muggeridge appear in the national biographical series on Authors, and that Hugh Trevor-Roper appears among Historians.).
Included among the twentieth-century spies are novelist Somerset Maugham, Lawrence of Arabia, Robin Bruce Lockhart (of "Reilly, Ace of Spies" fame), Claude Dansey (SIS), Colin Gubbins (SOE), Roger Hollis (Director, MI5), Alan Turing (mathematician/cryptographer without whom the Enigma code would not have been cracked); and art historian Anthony Blunt; BBC radio presenter Guy Burgess; journalist and intelligence officer Harold Adrian Russell Philby; and diplomat Donald Maclean (the last four, Soviet penetration agents in British Intelligence).
Even though the subtitle of the book, "Lifting the Lid on Worlds of Secret Intelligence," constitutes outrageous hyperbole, "Secret Lives," which euphemizes or glosses over various documented imperfections or improprieties among the subjects of its investigations, nevertheless contains a wealth of intelligence, even if it grants the reader only a glimpse into the lives of the shadowy figures who moved behind the scenes in the continuing drama of world history.
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