or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
12 used & new from £4.24
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

by Phillip Knightley (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £17.99
Price: £13.23 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £4.76 (26%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 10? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
6 new from £9.99 6 used from £4.24
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 14 used & new from £2.06
Paperback (New Ed) 34 used & new from £0.01

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Cambridge Spies : Complete BBC Series [2003] [DVD] DVD ~ Tom Hollander

The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century + Cambridge Spies : Complete BBC Series [2003] [DVD]
Price For Both: £18.20

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

My Silent War

My Silent War

by Kim Philby
4.2 out of 5 stars (5)  £11.99
A Hack's Progress

A Hack's Progress

by Phillip Knightley
Intelligence Power in Peace and War

Intelligence Power in Peace and War

by Michael Herman
£19.88
MI6

MI6

by Stephen Dorril
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £12.99
Anthony Blunt: His Lives

Anthony Blunt: His Lives

by Miranda Carter
4.7 out of 5 stars (12)  £6.86
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 516 pages
  • Publisher: Pimlico; 2nd New edition of Revised edition edition (6 Nov 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1844130916
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844130917
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 389,815 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description

Intelligence is very big business with a very rich history, told here by a master historian. The big question is, 'Did the actions of spies such as Sorge, Donovan or Angleton and their masters make any difference at all in the course of history?'


From the Publisher

'If Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Mitterand only manage one book this year, they could do a lot worse than pick up Phillip Knightley's and discover what imbecilities are committed in the hallowed name of intelligence.' John le Carr
See all Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(5)
(8)
(6)
(6)
(6)
(2)
(5)
(4)
(4)
(4)
(4)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century
61% buy the item featured on this page:
The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£13.23
Anthony Blunt: His Lives
7% buy
Anthony Blunt: His Lives 4.7 out of 5 stars (12)
£6.86
Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess
3% buy
Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess 3.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£15.92
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Mirrors, imbecilities, blunders and failures, 16 Jan 2006
By Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Phillip Knightley's book is a frontal attack against the intelligence business.
He poses the rhetoric question: 'Is there a justification for expensive, virtually incontrollable intelligence agencies in peace time?'
'The secrecy which surrounds them, corrodes a democratic society, contracts our civil liberties ... They spend more time protecting their budgets and their establishments and invent new justifications for their existence.'
For the author, 'open, published information and that obtained through traditional contacts have proved more useful.'

He illustrates his thesis profusely with examples where nobody trusts and believes nobody. Even specialized authors can only give hypotheses about what really went on: the Hollis affair, the Penkovsky - Nosenko - Golitsyn defections, the Sorge spy ring (Stalin didn't believe Sorge when he cabled the exact date of the Barbarossa invasion), the Lucy spy ring, the Kim Philby affair (discovered only after nearly 30 years).

Intelligence agencies have become wellsprings of power in our society, secret clubs for the privileged. Their cost is prohibitive, but the powerful are ready to protect their privileges at any cost ... for the entire population.
If democratic regimes constitute a threat for their holdings (mostly oil) or their credo (no distributive taxation), intelligence services will intervene. Some of these interventions were highly effective indeed (the PM Wilson affair in Great-Britain, Indonesia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Colombia, the Shah's Iran), at least in the short run. In the long run, they turn whole populations against the US.

That 'any global group of this size must be intensely concerned with its survival', can be illustrated by the fate of President Kennedy, who wanted to 'splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.'
The culprits behind the assassination are clearly exposed in Gregory Douglas's book 'Regicide', based on the memoirs of CIA chief Angleton, one of the main characters in this book.

Although written before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is still a very topical book about 'freedom and democracy' in the world. It reads like a thriller.
It contains also certain corrections on the author's former book 'The Philby Conspiracy'.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject












i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.