The Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949

Covers only 1909 to 1949. Gets badly bogged down in bureaucratic bullshit and doesn't say enough about what field agents did to acquire intelligence. I'm not satisfied with the organization of the book, either, but I get that Jeffery had only a small scope of the larger British Intelligence story to tell, as but one of several officially sanctioned histories covering specific elements. Frustrating, but understandable.

I should also say that I had an interesting disconnect at times because this all took place during the end of the British colonial era, so racism and classism are endemic, and horrifying behavior, especially during wartime, was both par for the course and also very carefully spoken *around*, in passive voice. Maybe they show more needed the distance of passive voice to save their sanity in war?

Things I liked: the coverage of the first world war and revolutionary Russia and the deliberate attempts to mention any and all women who were present when possible, and not only the (sexy) field agents -- alas, the mentions are mostly brief and often fail to show ostensibly awesome women doing anything particularly awesome. I'd happily read a book ONLY about women of various intelligence services being excellent intelligence officers, especially if it didn't spend half of its length praising the male commanders of the service, as the ones I've flipped through seem to.

Anyway, this book is not exciting and parts of it are actively dull, but it contained things related to my interests. Hence my somewhat generous 3 stars. show less

Very comprehensive but does not bear the same comparison as Christopher Andrew's similar work on MI5. Very exhaustative at times on the structure of the service but unfortunately for me, a little lacking in tradecraft. Very informative and a good source of information for the first years of the service

A monster book at 768 pages long. The world war two part is fascinating, but I alwys wonder with these books, how much they have left out!

I found it long winded and boring.

The most detailed and authoritative has been revealed in history British Secret Intelligence Service—popularly known as MI6 explores the important and largely hidden role MI6 had in shaping the history of Europe and the world.History’s greatest crime, tried to make their way across an often hostile Europe at the end of the Second World War, the hostility of the British the chance of democratic country characterized by event important and largely hidden has been revealed in the World WW2 Britain blew up jewish refugee ships.