Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History

By: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius

Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Step into the real world of the spy with this detailed and unforgettable tour of the millennia-long history and enduring legacy of espionage and covert operations. While most of us associate this top-secret subject with popular fiction and film, its true story is more fascinating, surprising, and important than you could possibly imagine.

These 24 thrilling lectures survey how world powers have attempted to work in the shadows to gain secret information or subvert enemies behind the scenes. Filled with stories and insights that will change the way you think about world history's most defining events, this course lets you peer inside a subject whose truths most people are unaware of.

Professor Liulevicius introduces you to the inner workings of covert organizations, including the Oprichnina, a feared secret service established by tsar Ivan the Terrible in the 1500s in an effort to cleanse Russia of treasonous activities; the CIA, established in 1947 by President Truman to replace the Office of Secret Services to be in charge of all intelligence collection – and which had an embarrassing early history; and Mossad, Israel's version of the CIA, which won a series of key intelligence victories during the cold war and over terror attacks and hostage crises in the second half of the 20th century.

You'll also meet famous – and infamous – spies, including Sir Francis Walsingham, Mata Hari, and Kim Philby. In this stirring series of lectures, you'll study the psychological motives behind spies, the ethics of cyber warfare and corporate espionage, the question of whether we now live in a surveillance society, and more.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2011 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2011 The Great Courses

The best course so far

The professor had my attention all the time and I absorbed every single word. To me this was a history course with a twist.

Worthwhile, period.

Great lecture series. Enjoy a well prepared series, excellent world history and let your imagination go.

Heavy on Espionage - Light on Covert Ops

Ehhh - it was alright. I found it pretty heavy on espionage and lacking in the covert operations the title suggests. Perhaps a good start for someone just becoming interested in the topic, but a bit lacking for anyone who has done some previous research.

Amazing

My favorite by far!
Thank you for this production.
I highly recommend it for intelligence education.

Interesting

Very interesting, learned something and could relate to many of the subjects as I remember them from the time they happened.

A good overview

Although I enjoyed this course and I'm a big fan of the author, I was hoping for some more detail rather than a general overview to cover a large number of examples over the period.

Great listen

I enjoyed listening to this "course" on espionage. The professor's narration style really helped to make listening that much more enjoyable. I learned alot and look forward to listening to more great courses.

Surprisingly Informative and Entertaining

I bought this book to check out The Great Courses library, and I ended up learning way more than anticipated. The audiobook presents the history of espionage in an interesting and informative way.

Good but sometimes hard to follow

An interesting read, but somewhat hard to follow. My only issue was that so many stories were packed together or within one another that I would occasionally get lost with who's who, and whether or not we were still talking about X. Maybe I might have some minor ADD or perhaps it's just the vaporous nature of the subject!

Interesting but a blur of anecdotes

This was quite the blur of anecdotes... Fascinating, but it helps if one is well versed in history in order to situate the stories he tells in time and space.