| Summary/Abstract |
‘Official histories’ sound like, and often are, stuffy reads, not to mention being suspect for an establishment bias. This work by Michael S. Goodman, Reader in Intelligence and International Affairs in the Department of War Studies, King's College London, UK, suffers from neither malady. Once I turned to this book, Volume I of a longer history still underway, I set aside a good novel I was reading at the time. My interest was caught immediately by Dr. Goodman's felicitous writing style and his fascinating chronicle of the formative years of the Joint Intelligence Committee or ‘JIC’, the most important entity for intelligence analysis in the British government. Having read Dr. Goodman's first-rate earlier work, Spying on the Nuclear Bear,1 as well as several of this articles and book chapters, I had high expectations for this history and they were met. I was eager to read this official history for another reason, too: one of my all-time favorite intelligence books is Sir Percy Cradock's Know Your Enemy,2 a classic in style and substance and an excellent companion to this official history.
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