A revealing look at the interrelationship between secret intelligence agencies and the wider societies and cultures they inhabit
Intelligence agencies pride themselves on transcending politics and delivering objective intelligence assessments that speak truth to power and are detached from the cultural or political biases that pervade our fallen world. They are commonly understood as cloistered entities, operating behind the veil of secrecy with relative freedom from societal scrutiny.
Spies, Culture, and Society demonstrates that intelligence services are, in fact, fundamentally embedded within the wider sociocultural domain they inhabit. Intelligence services have come in from the cold, featuring routinely today in the media and in our popular culture and political debates. Many profoundly influential cultural narratives, from ideas of a "deep state" to the many modern mythologies of espionage at the movies, have been shaped, often unintentionally, by the activities of intelligence services. In turn, intelligence agencies and their employees are not immune to the outside influence of culture and ideas, despite their noble dream of objectivity and detachment. This volume brings together some of the world's leading experts on intelligence and its wider impact in chapters that explore different aspects of this reciprocal relationship between intelligence services and the outside world. The topics covered include the influence of spy films and novels, interactions between spies and journalists, the historical roots of the "deep state" conspiracy theory, Western intelligence services and imperialism, and more.
This interdisciplinary collection reveals how both intelligence officers and citizens have constructed memories of intelligence services through various social prisms. Offering meaningful insights for intelligence studies scholars, Cold War historians, and media scholars, this collection offers a new paradigm for understanding intelligence agencies as fundamentally integrated into the cultures and societies they seek to protect.
Reviews
"This collection of essays by a strong transatlantic group of authors reminds us that our understanding of spying is always mediated by its fictional portrait and by those who emerge from the secret world to tell its story. If you want to know more about the history of deep state ideas or learn about figures such as Cord Meyer, who crossed the line from espionage to public narratives, this is an excellent starting point."—Wesley Wark, Centre for International Governance Innovation
"The contributors to this seminal volume have provided a much-needed blueprint for putting culture center stage in intelligence studies. Their masterly accounts demonstrate the value of looking at both sides of the looking glass and the dialogue between covert and overt, imagined and real."—Claire Hubbard-Hall, associate professor of intelligence history, Bishop Grosseteste University, author of Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence
About the Author
Simon Willmetts is an associate professor of intelligence studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University. He is the author of In Secrecy's Shadow: The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema, 1941–1979.
Constant Hijzen is the historical adviser at the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and is a research fellow in intelligence and security at Leiden University. He is the author of Roots of Counterterrorism: Contemporary Wisdom from Dutch Intelligence.
