Spies
The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West
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Narrated by:
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Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
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By:
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Calder Walton
About this listen
Foreign Policy Best Book of 2023
Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2023
The “riveting” (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China.
Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin’s means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing “unprecedented” about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends.
The Cold War started long before 1945. But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is a “deeply researched and artfully crafted” (Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the US President) story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks being launched woefully unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of Eastern superpowers: Russia’s past and present and the global ascendance of China.
Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America’s clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provided key lessons for countering China today. This “authoritative, sweeping” (Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embers of War) history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century.
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A haunting, spellbinding tale.
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By: Paul L. Williams
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GCHQ
- Centenary Edition
- By: Richard Aldrich
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 25 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years - but we still know next to nothing about it. In this ground-breaking book - the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published - intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.
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Absolutely fascinating
- By philstopford on 04-01-24
By: Richard Aldrich
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The Road to 9/11
- Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
- By: Peter Dale Scott
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack.
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Full of Interesting Information, Hard to Follow
- By Blizzard on 09-20-13
By: Peter Dale Scott
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The Sword and the Shield
- By: Christopher Andrew, Vasilli Mitrokhin
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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This book reveals the most complete picture ever of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe. It is based on an extremely top secret archive which details the full extent of its worldwide network. Christopher Andrew is professor of modern and contemporary history and chair of the history department at Cambridge University, a former visiting professor of national security at Harvard, a frequent guest lecturer at other United States universities, and a regular host of BBC radio and TV programs.
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Great book on the history of the KGB
- By Clydene on 05-28-12
By: Christopher Andrew, and others
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The Plot to Betray America
- How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It
- By: Malcolm Nance
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Plot to Betray America, New York Times best-selling author and renowned intelligence expert Malcolm Nance reveals exactly how President Trump and his inner circle conspired, coordinated, communicated, and eventually strategized to commit the greatest acts of treachery in the history of the United States: Compromising the presidential oath of office in exchange for power and personal enrichment.
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Fantastic Read
- By Customer on 11-14-19
By: Malcolm Nance
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Legacy of Ashes
- The History of the CIA
- By: Tim Weiner
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.
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Flawed but Important
- By Michael on 07-18-08
By: Tim Weiner
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White Malice
- The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa
- By: Susan Williams
- Narrated by: Chanté McCormick
- Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In White Malice, Susan Williams unearths the covert operations pursued by the CIA from Ghana to the Congo to the UN in an effort to frustrate and deny Africa’s new generation of nationalist leaders. This dramatically upends the conventional belief that the African nations failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As the old European powers moved out, the US moved in.
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A very good read.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-20-22
By: Susan Williams
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Shadow State
- Murder, Mayhem, and Russia's Remaking of the West
- By: Luke Harding
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Moscow’s support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election has grown into the biggest political scandal of modern times. Its American players are well-known. In Shadow State, award-winning journalist and best-selling author Luke Harding reveals the Russians behind the story: the spies, hackers, and internet trolls. Harding charts how the Kremlin has updated Communist-era methods of influence and propaganda for the age of Facebook and Twitter, and considers the compelling question of our age: what exactly does Vladimir Putin have on President Trump?
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The reader is mispronouncing words!
- By Jonathan on 07-20-20
By: Luke Harding
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The Compatriots
- The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad
- By: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem. Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late 19th century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB - and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world.
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Great book. Extremely detailed history of the USSR
- By M. Gordon on 03-03-20
By: Andrei Soldatov, and others
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The Iran Wars
- Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East
- By: Jay Solomon
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The Iran Wars is an absorbing account of a battle waged on many levels - military, financial, and covert. Jay Solomon’s book is the product of extensive in-depth reporting and interviews with all the key players in the conflict - from high-ranking Iranian officials to Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiating team. With a reporter’s masterly investigative eye and the narrative dexterity of a great historian, Solomon shows how Iran’s nuclear development went unnoticed for years by the international community only to become its top security concern.
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Titled Towards Confrontation
- By Jim on 03-19-17
By: Jay Solomon
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The Longest War
- America and Al-Qaeda Since 9/11
- By: Peter L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Longest War, Peter Bergen offers a comprehensive history of this war and its evolution, from the strategies devised in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to the fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond. Weaving together internal documents from al-Qaeda and the U.S. offices of counterterrorism, first-person interviews with top-level jihadists and senior Washington officials, along with his own experiences on the ground in the Middle East, Bergen balances the accounts of each side.
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More Bush bashing..yes, but still worth reading.
- By Dennis on 01-18-11
By: Peter L. Bergen
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To Start a War
- How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq
- By: Robert Draper
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Even now, after more than 15 years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper.
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If you’ve grown weary of the current GOP administration’s incompetence...
- By Marynelle on 09-04-20
By: Robert Draper
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The New Nobility
- The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB
- By: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogin
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse.
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A little difficult to follow
- By Jairus on 12-10-10
By: Andrei Soldatov, and others
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Beware of the MSS
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Great listen, interesting information
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Beware of the MSS
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On a sunlit morning in September 1978, a sloop drifts aimlessly across the Chesapeake Bay. The cabin reveals signs of a struggle, and “classified” documents, live 9 mm cartridges, and a top-secret “burst” satellite communications transmitter are discovered aboard. But where is the boat’s owner, former CIA officer John Paisley? One man may hold the key to finding out. Tennent “Pete” Bagley was once a rising star in America’s spy aristocracy, and many expected he’d eventually become CIA director.
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The, too long, story of an obsession
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The Art of Intelligence
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A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert here tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Henry Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever.
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Looking for a place in History?
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The Sword and the Shield
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This book reveals the most complete picture ever of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe. It is based on an extremely top secret archive which details the full extent of its worldwide network. Christopher Andrew is professor of modern and contemporary history and chair of the history department at Cambridge University, a former visiting professor of national security at Harvard, a frequent guest lecturer at other United States universities, and a regular host of BBC radio and TV programs.
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Great book on the history of the KGB
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The Man with the Poison Gun
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In the fall of 1961, KGB assassin Bogdan Stashinsky defected to West Germany. After spilling his secrets to the CIA, Stashinsky was put on trial in what would be the most publicized assassination case of the entire Cold War. The publicity stirred up by the Stashinsky case forced the KGB to change its modus operandi abroad and helped end the career of Aleksandr Shelepin, one of the most ambitious and dangerous Soviet leaders.
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Long…but excellent
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Circle of Treason
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Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
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The hunt for a mole
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The Good Spy
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The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history - a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East - CIA operative Robert Ames.
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Biased but interesting
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The Billion Dollar Spy
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While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
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Compelling as historical thriller, character study
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The Secret World
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The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. In this audiobook, distinguished historian Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia - and shows its relevance today.
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Very interesting history but biased
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A Spy Among Friends
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Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time.
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The narrator is incorrectly identified.
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The Quiet Americans
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At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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A Tragedy for One
- By Amazon Customer on 09-23-20
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Ukraine and the Art of Strategy
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Performance
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The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, subsequent war in Eastern Ukraine, and economic sanctions imposed by the West transformed European politics. The conflict did not escalate to the levels originally feared but nor was either side able to bring it to a definitive conclusion. Ukraine suffered a loss of territory but was not forced into changing its policies away from the Westward course adopted as a result of the EuroMaidan uprising of February 2014. President Putin was left supporting a separatist enclave as Russia's economy suffered significant damage.
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Essential Outline of Ukraine By Master Strategist
- By Theo Horesh on 06-14-22
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The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
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mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
What listeners say about Spies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Freeheel Goat
- 01-18-24
This is a definitive account of pre & post cold war
This book explains the how and why of the coup that unseated Gorbachev and other things that only now are coming to light. The author does not stint in his praise and condemnation of Eastern and Western spy agencies.
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- William S. Stone
- 03-09-24
Dry but fascinating
The language is dry as dust but the history is absolutely riveting. Worth every minute!
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- Alex B.
- 04-05-24
Great little know history
Really interesting and memorable history of east west spying. A lot of fascinating details of episodes and names that I knew a little about - Cambridge 5, Richard Hanson, Berlin, USSR spying on WW2 allies, a tunnel under Berlin, the Cuban Missile crisis ETC.
A lot of audible reviews are upset about the author’s reporting on trump and Russia. But if the book is credible about other Russian spying, why isn’t it about Russia and Trump?
At the end, the book does drift away from its core subject and into some unsupported speculation - quantum computing, the fourth Industrial Revolution etc.
But the discussion of Chinese spy craft and comparisons to the USSR was interesting.
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- Issac Singer
- 07-03-24
Did not age well
Unfortunately this author comprised his own integrity with his token Trump - Russia collusion fraud. And yes, this book was written long after the facts were out. Really embarrassing and pathetic to read an author with TDS. Sad. More importantly, objectively false. What does that say about the rest of his research?
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- Dirk Dev
- 04-09-24
US Open for Sies
The conclusion after all the fascinating history, will leave the reader questioning America's future. Trump may be Russias greatest ally.
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- Michael G.
- 07-09-23
a war by other means with consequences
Lots of detail and examples much confirmed by other sources. He does not use the term, but it is the "Great Game" of nations we have known throughout history that continues. Cold or hot it goes on and on. Think open society vs authoritarian describes the struggle better than "liberal democracy" vs authoritarian. He points out the not level playing field when Russia, China and others are police states make defending our open societies difficult.
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- JC
- 07-25-23
History was spot on
Author goes of the rails at the end
In light of what has been revealed concerning recent history in the last 6 months with new information still be made available he should have avoided making rash conclusions about recent events that are still being unraveled
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- Alejandro
- 07-25-23
Detailed overview of cold war espionage
This book was a great overview of Cold War espionage. I docked a star for inserting his own political beliefs at times.
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- Nate
- 06-25-24
Incredible view of the intelligence battle between the U.S. and Russia
Well written and narrated. Must read for those with an interest in 20th century rise of Russian/Soviet and U.S./Britain intelligence
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-03-24
Perfect except for 1975 Church criticism
Compelling narration and excellent detail except for tired villifying of the landmark and very important 1975 Senate Church Committee. The author repeats a tired, misleading narrative that Sen. Frank Church was "grandstanding" and damaged US intelligence. Many government and CIA officials recognize the integrity and value of Church's work including helping to create House and Senate Intelligence committees - which provide oversight without limiting power and influence of the CIA. Critics of Church Committee also forget that it disclosed details of CIA history that make it possible to write books like this one. That is an unfortunately common flaw among intelligence historians, but "SPIES" is still worth reading and studying.
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