The first ever authorised history of GCHQ, Britain’s most secretive intelligence agency, written with unprecedented access to classified archives
John Ferris is a Professor of History at the University of Calgary, where he also is a Fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. He received a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London. He has published four books and numerous academic articles on diplomatic, intelligence and military history, as well as contemporary strategy and intelligence.
Fascinating … [Ferris] has rescued several great women codebreakers
from obscurity … [Bletchley Park] has become embedded in national
myth, but Ferris offers cool and balanced judgment … This
monumental work completes the authorised picture of a century of
British intelligence, a testament to how far Britain has moved away
from the cult of official secrecy
*The Times*
In Ferris we have a shrewd and scrupulous historian … The
references to individual people at all levels of the service are
many and illuminating … Small details can bring a nod or a smile
when one is reading … GCHQ shows it is alert to the role of a
security and defence agency in a modern democracy, and Ferris is to
be congratulated for shedding so much light upon it
*Scotsman*
The book is at its best when sifting the role of signal
intelligence (Sigint) in the Falklands war and other late imperial
conflicts such as Indonesia and Palestine … Comprehensive
*Guardian*
GCHQ emerges from the shadows … The story of the codebreakers is in
fact a parallel history of the entire twentieth century … There is
intriguing detailing of the organisation’s structure and systems
... Illuminating ... Absorbing
*Spectator*
What happens when a tiny caste, so obsessed with keeping thing
hidden that it speaks its own language of Ultra, Venona or Zircon,
opens up? … The answer – not withstanding significant restriction
on what Ferris was allowed to publish – is a book of revelation …
Although he spent months sifting the papers in a high-security
Cheltenham vault, [Ferris] does not lose sight of the big picture …
There is much in the book that illuminates other aspects of postwar
history, from the struggle against the Jewish underground in
Palestine to the 1982 Falklands conflict … Today, [Ferris] argues,
greater openness about intelligence gathering does not affect its
relevance and power. His book is an example of this, and shows that
the abandonment of Cold War levels of secrecy about GCHQ benefits
us all
*Sunday Times*
There is so much more to this secrecy-shrouded outfit, reveals
Canadian historian John Ferris … Fielding formidable research,
Ferris tells a global tale of mathematics, engineering, data
sciences and linguistics in the service of politics, diplomacy, war
and security
*Nature*
[Ferris] has written a deeply learned, comprehensive account of
[GCHQ’s] achievements and occasional failures
*Daily Telegraph*
A fascinating tale … It takes us with the codebreakers –
mathematicians, linguists, teachers and philosophers and eccentrics
– through the ages of radio, telegrams telephone and satellites to
the digital present
*Financial Times*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
