Paperback. White cover with black title.

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For conditions, please view our photographs. An original  book from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG.

             As a young man, Jack found this book interesting.

A History of the British Secret Service by Richard Deacon (George Donald King McCormick) is a well-known but controversial source, often described as a general overview with some notable inaccuracies and anecdotal elements, particularly in early editions.

Reputation and Accuracy

• Mixed Scholarly Reception: The book receives mixed reviews regarding its historical accuracy. Some reviews praise it as “historically accurate” and “meticulous and scrupulous in its sources”.

• Criticisms of Inaccuracy: Other critics and historians point out “shoddy scholarship with incited assertions” and “numerous inaccuracies,” especially concerning events in the 17th century. The book is sometimes seen as a collection of “unconnected anecdotes” offering little detailed insight or reliable evidence for some of its claims.

• Journalistic vs. Academic Approach: The author, Richard Deacon, was a British journalist and popular historian, not a professional academic historian. His writing style often provides an engaging, broad narrative, but sometimes lacks the rigorous documentation and critical analysis expected in academic historical works.

• Use of Sources: Early editions of the book, like the 1969 Granada printing, were written without direct access to many classified Security Service files, which only became available much later. Deacon relied heavily on available public records, memoirs, and anecdotal accounts, which inevitably led to some factual gaps or errors.

Summary

For those seeking a general overview of British intelligence history, the book can be an illuminating and ambitious starting point, covering a vast scope from the Elizabethan era to the Cold War. However, it should be read with a critical eye and not be taken as an entirely definitive or rigorously documented historical source without cross-referencing with more recent, declassified information and academic research. Later, revised editions (such as those published in the 1980s and 1990s) did incorporate more information made available over time.

Review: Good book for the most general of overviews but inaccurate in claims on 17th century intelligence. Furthermore, there is shoddy scholarship with incited assertions in several chapters. Nonetheless, the scope is ambitious and if you have little knowledge of a certain period, the book is illumination: for instance I was enthralled by the section on British intelligence in the lead up to WWII.