Product Description: This book explores the limits of institutional knowledge. What does an empire know and how does it know it? How does its own culture, general or bureaucratic, shape the information it receives and its ability to "process" information. Army Foreign Area Officer Maj. Patrick Kelley takes us through historical and cultural terrain never before traveled in a virtuoso exercise of cross-disciplinary analysis that is as much fun as it is thought provoking. Not since Spengler or Voegelin tackled civilization dynamics has empire been subject to such original and erudite treatment on such a grand scale. Imperial Secrets is sui generis and Kelley has invented a new field: imperial informatics. Policymakers would do well to read and ponder this book before taking their next major decision.

Major Kelley chooses three empires with which to compare our current intelligence circumstances. Each of these faced challenges in understanding peoples; Rome in the first and second centuries AD, the Ottomans in the 16th to 18th, and Britain in India in the 18th to early 20th. Kelley feels these warrant study in light of our need to deal with peoples whom we may seek to influence. The author also asks: ?If power shapes knowledge, does knowledge also shape power This is a delightful exercise in erudition in which key postmodern insights and reasoning are used to gain political understanding. Full of surprises and insights, Kelley takes his readers through an enchanted forest peopled by Foucalt, T.E. Lawrence, J.S. Bach, Borges, Idries Shah, Hobsbawm, Jung, Baudrillard, and many more. One hopes our educated, certified, and degreed military and intelligence leadership can penetrate a work this rich, deep, and ultimately useful. (Originally published in color by the NDIC Press)

The 14 secrets of longevity of the Qing Dynasty Emperor, Qian Long, cover all aspects of living long and healthy life. This book offers Qian Long's sage advice on the role of diet, exercise, relaxation, emotions, sex, and environment in achieving long life and good health. This traditional Chinese medical theory includes self-massage, stretching, and qi gong exercise as well as how to use Chinese tonic herbs.

The renowned espionage historian offers “a gripping account of British intelligence during the last days of empire” (The Daily Telegraph). Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified records and hitherto overlooked personal papers, intelligence expert Calder Walton offers a compelling and authoritative history of Britain’s espionage activities after World War II. A major addition to intelligence literature, this is the first book to utilize records from the Foreign Office’s secret archive, which contains some of the darkest and most shameful secrets from the last days of Britain’s empire. Working clandestinely, MI5 operatives helped to prop up newly independent states across the globe against a ceaseless campaign of Communist subversion. Though the CIA is often assumed to be the principal actor against the Soviet Union through the Cold War, Britain plays a key role through its so-called “special relationship” with the United States. In Empire of Secrets, Walton sheds new light on everything from violent counterinsurgencies fought by British forces in the jungles of Malaya and Kenya, to urban warfare campaigns conducted in Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula. The stories here have chilling contemporary resonance, detailing the use and abuse of intelligence by governments that oversaw state-sanctioned terrorism, wartime rendition, and “enhanced” interrogation. “An important and highly original account of postwar British intelligence.” —The Wall Street Journal

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year The untold story of how Russian espionage in imperial China shaped the emergence of the Russian Empire as a global power. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire made concerted efforts to collect information about China. It bribed Chinese porcelain-makers to give up trade secrets, sent Buddhist monks to Mongolia on intelligence-gathering missions, and trained students at its Orthodox mission in Beijing to spy on their hosts. From diplomatic offices to guard posts on the Chinese frontier, Russians were producing knowledge everywhere, not only at elite institutions like the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But that information was secret, not destined for wide circulation. Gregory Afinogenov distinguishes between the kinds of knowledge Russia sought over the years and argues that they changed with the shifting aims of the state and its perceived place in the world. In the seventeenth century, Russian bureaucrats were focused on China and the forbidding Siberian frontier. They relied more on spies, including Jesuit scholars stationed in China. In the early nineteenth century, the geopolitical challenge shifted to Europe: rivalry with Britain drove the Russians to stake their prestige on public-facing intellectual work, and knowledge of the East was embedded in the academy. None of these institutional configurations was especially effective in delivering strategic or commercial advantages. But various knowledge regimes did have their consequences. Knowledge filtered through Russian espionage and publication found its way to Europe, informing the encounter between China and Western empires. Based on extensive archival research in Russia and beyond, Spies and Scholars breaks down long-accepted assumptions about the connection between knowledge regimes and imperial power and excavates an intellectual legacy largely neglected by historians.

In this international bestseller investigating the murder of the Russian Imperial Family, Helen Rappaport embarks on a quest to uncover the various plots and plans to save them, why they failed, and who was responsible. The murder of the Romanov family in July 1918 horrified the world, and its aftershocks still reverberate today. In Putin's autocratic Russia, the Revolution itself is considered a crime, and its anniversary was largely ignored. In stark contrast, the centenary of the massacre of the Imperial Family was commemorated in 2018 by a huge ceremony attended by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. While the murders themselves have received major attention, what has never been investigated in detail are the various plots and plans behind the scenes to save the family—on the part of their royal relatives, other governments, and Russian monarchists loyal to the Tsar. Rappaport refutes the claim that the fault lies entirely with King George V, as has been the traditional view for the last century. The responsibility for failing the Romanovs must be equally shared. The question of asylum for the Tsar and his family was an extremely complicated issue that presented enormous political, logistical and geographical challenges at a time when Europe was still at war. Like a modern day detective, Helen Rappaport draws on new and never-before-seen sources from archives in the US, Russia, Spain and the UK, creating a powerful account of near misses and close calls with a heartbreaking conclusion. With its up-to-the-minute research, The Race to Save the Romanovs is sure to replace outdated classics as the final word on the fate of the Romanovs.

One of the first great spy novels, The Riddle of the Sands is set during the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War. The story builds in excitement as two young men on a sailing holiday discover a German plot to invade England. This edition is complemented by a fine introduction which examines the novel in its political and historical context. - ;`About this coast... In the event of war it seems to me that every inch of it would be important, sand and all.' Executed in 1922 for his involvement in Irish republicanism, Childers in remembered most vividly for his ground-breaking spy novel, The Riddle of the Sands (1903). In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, the sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it hard to endure the emptiness and boredom of his life in London. He reluctantly accepts an invitation from a college friend, Davies, the shyly intrepid yachtsman, and joins him on a sailing holiday in the Baltic. The regeneration of Carruthers begins as he is initiated into the mysteries of seamanship, but the story builds in excitement as Carruthers and Davies discover a German plot to invade England. Like much contemporary British spy fiction, The Riddle of the Sands reflects the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War and the intricacy of its conception and its lucid detail make it a classic of its genre. This edition is complemented by a fine introduction which examines the novel in its political and historical context. -

Get in the action with some old school spy thrillers and true secret service stories: Introduction: The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents (George Barton) My Adventures as a Spy (Robert Baden-Powell) Novels: Robert W. Chambers In Secret The Dark Star The Slayer of Souls The Flaming Jewel John Buchan: The 39 Steps Greenmantle Mr Standfast The Three Hostages The Island of Sheep The Courts of the Morning The Green Wildebeest Huntingtower Castle Gay The House of the Four Winds The Power-House John Macnab The Dancing Floor The Gap in the Curtain Sick Heart River Sing a Song of Sixpence E. Phillips Oppenheim: The Spy Paramount The Great Impersonation Last Train Out The Double Traitor Havoc The Spymaster Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat The Vanished Messenger The Dumb Gods Speak The Pawns Court The Box With Broken Seals The Great Prince Shan The Devil's Paw The Bird of Paradise The Zeppelin's Passenger The Kingdom of the Blind The Illustrious Prince The Lost Ambassador Mysterious Mr. Sabin The Betrayal The Colossus of Arcadia Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent John R. Coryell: The Great Spy System William Le Queux: The Great War in England in 1897 The Invasion of 1910 Whoso Findeth a Wife Of Royal Blood Her Majesty's Minister The Under-Secretary The Czar's Spy Spies of the Kaiser The Price of Power Her Royal Highness At the Sign of the Sword Number 70, Berlin The Way to Win The Zeppelin Destroyer Sant of the Secret Service Fred M. White: The Romance of the Secret Service Fund By Woman's Wit The Mazaroff Rifle In the Express The Almedi Concession The Other Side of the Chess-Board Three of Them James Fenimore Cooper: The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground Arthur Conan Doyle: His Last Bow Talbot Mundy: Jimgrim and Allah's Peace The Iblis at Ludd The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil The Lion of Petra The Woman Ayisha The Lost Trooper Affair in Araby A Secret Society Moses and Mrs. Aintree The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb...

DigiCat presents to you this unique collection, designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents (George Barton) My Adventures as a Spy (Robert Baden-Powell) Novels: Robert W. Chambers In Secret The Dark Star The Slayer of Souls The Flaming Jewel John Buchan: The 39 Steps Greenmantle Mr Standfast The Three Hostages The Island of Sheep The Courts of the Morning The Green Wildebeest Huntingtower Castle Gay The House of the Four Winds The Power-House John Macnab The Dancing Floor The Gap in the Curtain Sick Heart River Sing a Song of Sixpence E. Phillips Oppenheim: The Spy Paramount The Great Impersonation Last Train Out The Double Traitor The Spymaster Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat The Vanished Messenger The Pawns Court The Box With Broken Seals The Great Prince Shan The Devil's Paw The Zeppelin's Passenger The Kingdom of the Blind The Illustrious Prince The Lost Ambassador Mysterious Mr. Sabin The Betrayal The Colossus of Arcadia Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent John R. Coryell: The Great Spy System William Le Queux: The Great War in England in 1897 The Invasion of 1910 Whoso Findeth a Wife Of Royal Blood Her Majesty's Minister The Under-Secretary The Czar's Spy Spies of the Kaiser The Price of Power Her Royal Highness At the Sign of the Sword Number 70, Berlin The Way to Win The Zeppelin Destroyer Sant of the Secret Service Fred M. White: The Romance of the Secret Service Fund By Woman's Wit The Mazaroff Rifle In the Express The Almedi Concession The Other Side of the Chess-Board Three of Them James Fenimore Cooper: The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground Arthur Conan Doyle: His Last Bow Talbot Mundy: Jimgrim and Allah's Peace The Iblis at Ludd The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil The Lion of Petra The Woman Ayisha Affair in Araby A Secret Society Moses and Mrs. Aintree The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb...