The clandestine world of surveillance, spying and intelligence from ancient times to the post 9/11 world
Ernest Volkman
London: Carlton, 2007, h/b, £20
This is a lavishly and creatively illustrated, large format, (i.e. slightly bigger than A4) glossy paper, coffee-table book on the history of espionage. A former journalist with Newsday, and author of many previous books on spying, Volkman knows the subject and his text is well written. Since the author covers events from ancient Egypt to post-9/11, what we get are illustrative chapters and treatments of some well known (and some little known) incidents in the history of the subject. This is not an encyclopaedia. I could quibble with his choice of incidents in the post-WW2 era and I could question some of his political judgements, but what would be the point? The subject matter since WW2 is so vast, any selection is bound to be criticised.
If you know more than a little about the subject, his treatment of recent events will be too slight for you. If you want to study the history of the subject and know nothing I guess this might be a reasonable historical introduction. But other than that, what is there to say? It looks good, feels good to handle, has been nicely made, and is very reasonably priced. I just cannot imagine who is going to buy it.