A gripping history of the Security Service and its covert surveillance on British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the popular imagination MI5, or the Security Service, is known chiefly as the branch of the British state responsible for chasing down those who endanger national security\u2014from Nazi fifth columnists to Soviet spies and today\u2019s domestic extremists. Yet, working from official documents released to the National Archives distinguished historian David Caute discovers that suspicion also fell on those who merely exercised their civil liberties, posing no threat to national security. In reality, this \u2018other history\u2019 of the Security Service was dictated not only by the consistent anti-communist and imperial aims of the British state but also by the political prejudices of MI5\u2019s personnel. The guiding notions were \u201cDefence of the Realm\u201d and \u201csubversion.\u201d
Caute exposes the massive state operation to track the activities and affiliations of a range of journalists, academics, scientists, filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians, whom the Security Service classified as a threat to national security.
Among the targets of surveillance are such prominent figures as Arthur Ransome, Paul Robeson, J.B. Priestley, Kingsley Amis, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, Dorothy Hodgkin, Jacob Bronowski, John Berger, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Kingsley Martin, Michael Redgrave, Joan Littlewood, Joseph Losey, Michael Foot and Harriet Harman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verso \/ 416 pages \/ May 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n