The Secret History of the Five Eyes
The Untold Story of the Shadowy International Spy Network, Through Its Targets, Traitors and Spies
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The Secret History of the Five Eyes
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Narrated by:
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Richard Kerbaj
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By:
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Richard Kerbaj
About this listen
The Secret History of the Five Eyes: The untold story of the international spy network, is a riveting and exclusive narrative of the most powerful and least understood intelligence alliance, which has been steeped in secrecy since its formation in 1956.
Richard Kerbaj, an award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker, bypasses the usual censorship channels to tell the definitive account of authoritative but unauthorised stories of the Western world's most powerful but least known intelligence alliance made up of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. As Kerbaj shows, spy stories are never better than when they are true—and these span from 1930s Nazi spy rings to the most recent developments in Ukraine and China.
Through personal interviews with world leaders—including British Prime Ministers Theresa May and David Cameron—and more than 100 intelligence officials, this book explores the complex personalities who helped shape the Five Eyes. They include a Scotland Yard detective who became a spymaster and inspired the first exchanges between MI5 and the FBI. An American home economics teacher who helped create one of the most effective programmes to counter Soviet espionage. The CIA's lone officer in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution. GCHQ's chief during the Edward Snowden intelligence leak. And the Australian politician turned diplomat whose tip-off to the FBI instigated the inquiry into Russia's meddling in the US presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Richard Kerbaj is able to draw from deep inside the secret corridors of power and his unparalleled access spans all 5 countries. Some of the people he has interviewed include former GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban, CIA director General David Petraeus, MI5 director-general Eliza Manningham-Buller, NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers, British National Security Advisor Kim Darroch, ASIO chief Mike Burgess, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's chief Richard Fadden, and Ciaran Martin, the official who oversaw Britain's assessments on whether the Chinese telecoms firm, Huawei, should have had a role in the creation of the UK's 5G network.
This audiobook will lift the lid on spy stories from across the English-speaking world, question the future of the alliance, and our place within it.
©2022 Richard Kerbaj (P)2022 Bonnier Books UKCritic Reviews
"Puts Richard Kerbaj in the front rank of modern authors on espionage. It is, by turns, gripping and shocking and sheds completely new light on the most important intelligence alliance in the world." (Tim Shipman, author of All Out War)
What listeners say about The Secret History of the Five Eyes
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Alex
- 17-03-2023
Not a great narration, writing is light on analysis
An uncritical analysis that leans into opinion, including political, and sometimes lacks the objectivity that this story deserves. The writing is slightly clumsy and there is an overuse of and over-reliance on quotations, even where those quotes offer very little to the story.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- W. Lang
- 07-03-2023
Educational and illuminating
Thank you for the research to pull this together, illuminating and important work..well worth the read and listen
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 11-10-2022
Interesting story so far, awful reading
Only part way through so far. Finding it very hard going as the reader (the author) is absolutely dreadful as a reader of the work. The work itself is actually quite interesting, but the poor presentation really takes the shine off it and makes it hard to listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 11-02-2023
Great Story, Terrible Narration!
An interesting and clearly well researched story which is unfortunately somewhat ruined by a choppy, poorly read and terrible sounding narration.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Rob Cortes
- 06-09-2024
Excessive Quotes
Not necessarily a fan of [quote] the excessive amount of 'quote/end quote' [end quote.] 😵💫
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-05-2023
Interesting book, terrible narration
Disjointed narration with mispronunciations of common words. Only continued listening because the book was interesting.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-07-2024
Great book worth listening to, but amateur audio & editing
Great story and worth listening to. The performance is difficult, though. Audio is start-stop (in the middle of natural sentences), seemingly as a result of high-school-esque amateur editing. I recommend coming to terms with this in your own way and then persevering with the story
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 29-07-2024
Hard going
The style of narration did nothing to help the listener along. It felt like listening to an instruction manual rather than exciting spy history.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-07-2023
Poor narration
I have never struck such a poor narration as the author’s efforts in this book. Why he continues to use the “quote-close quote “ phase is mystifying and extremely distracting.
Just couldn’t get into it. Sad, as the topic is clearly interesting.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Quite flimsy for what it costs.
- 16-03-2024
Worst narration
Don't buy this. The narration isn't listenable, even if the book is decent (don't know, couldn't keep listening)
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