Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5

Almost too thorough at times. It took a lot of work to get through, but was quite interesting. My one piece of criticism would be Andrew's use of acronyms - he may define it once and then use throughout the book. Since I read this as an e-book, it was much harder to flip back a few pages to see what the acronym stood for.

After a web search for detective novels, Amazon automatically recommended this double-sized title and the American edition of “Defend the Realm” became a Black Friday transaction. Intelligence is claiming its place in history. In 1909, German espionage was rampant. Britannia intended to stab Subversion in the back before it could do the same to the fighting man. As of the centenary, the Service has gone from counter-espionage to counter-terrorism, having seen through the eyes of Gestapo, Moscow Centre, and Al Qaida. Written in upbeat manner for recruiting, the book accounts the new closer cooperation between MI5 and police. Several dramas are distilled from the files, the National Archives having 1% of the 400,000 multi-volume papers. The Double-Cross system allowed the Service to run German espionage’s distractions prior to D-Day. MI5’s notorious nemesis, the Cambridge Five, remained behind after a seeming all-clear when the pair of controllers were recalled by 1939. The US atomic bomb was a surprise to everyone. Many examples of disinformation are provided by all sides. New data includes the publication of 82 photographic plates. Though Sherlock Holmes confessed that he “seemed to hear Moriarty’s voice screaming at me out of the abyss”, MI5 has avoided subversive scares according to the author. Recent crises demonstrate forgetting of history, so this type of volume may become an exercise for officers as the risk of fanaticism is further powered by WMD. The Center for Protection of National Infrastructure was formed in 2007 and has prevented Islamic and IRA attacks. London looks forward to hosting the 2012 Olympics. Some further trends which are not included are British rewarding crowdsourced surveillance, risks of botnets, and surge of privatized and transnational security. Thanks.