Overview

A gripping history of the Security Service and its covert surveillance on British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century In the popular imagination, MI5--or the Security Service--is know chiefly as the branch of the British state responsible for chasing down those who pose a threat to the country's national security, from Nazi fifth columnists during the Second World War to Soviet spies during the Cold War and today's domestic extremists. Yet, aided by the release of official documents to the National Archives, David Caute argues in this radical and revelatory history of the Security Service that suspicion often fell on those who posed no threat to national security. Instead, this other history of MI5, ignored in official accounts, was often fueled by the political prejudices of MI5's personnel and involved a huge program of surveillance against anyone who dared question the status quo. Caute, a prominent historian and expert on the history of the Cold War, tells the story of the massive state operation to track the activities of a range of journalists, academics, scientists, filmmakers, writers, and others who, during the twentieth century, the Security Service perceived as a threat to the national interest. Those who were tracked include such prominent figures as Kingsley Amis, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, John Berger, Benjamin Britten, Eric Hobsbawm, Michael Foot, Harriet Harman, and others.

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The author's wit and biting analysis render this a most readable study. -- Kirkus Reviews on Isaac amd Isaiah

"The author's wit and biting analysis render this a most readable study. -- ""Kirkus Reviews on Isaac amd Isaiah"""

Author Information

David Caute, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Historical Society, is a quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His recent books include Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic; Politics and the Novel during the Cold War; and The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War. Dennis Kleinman has been narrating audiobooks since 2013 and has at least forty titles to his credit. His career began with a biography of a British general, Sir David Fraser, and then transitioned into a series of period romance audiobooks. He has also narrated half a dozen nautical themed audiobooks, as well as South African themed works that include The Lion Seeker and The Zebra Affaire. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

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