“Few resources can be of greater use to the student of 20th century history than easy access to the original documentary evidence of how Britain's foreign policy was shaped by secret intelligence.”
Professor Anthony Glees, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham
Spanning four key twentieth-century conflicts, with a spotlight on the Second World War, Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War provides access to British government secret intelligence and foreign policy files from 1873 to 1953.
Sourced from The National Archives, U.K., the range of documents – from signals intelligence reports to government-directed policy and strategy – will support teaching and research from the period of Appeasement right through to the early Cold War. The content of the material is international in its breadth and scope.
At the heart of this resource are the files of the Permanent Undersecretary’s Department (PUSD). The PUSD was the point of liaison between the Foreign Office and the British intelligence establishment, and these files document intelligence activities and their influence on foreign policy from 1873 to 1951, providing new insights into key moments of twentieth-century history.
Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War is perhaps the greatest and most exciting British archival innovation in decades... This is a fascinating and a fantastic collection and ought to be the staple ingredient for all histories of the Second World War from now on.
This collection represents some of the most valuable files from the British official archive on intelligence, defence and foreign policy... From students at many different levels working on their projects, to academic researchers with a specialist interest, there is an Aladdin's cave of secret history to be found here.
Secret intelligence has long been regarded as the "missing dimension" of international relations. However, thanks to the Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War project, Britain's spies, security agents, codebreakers and deceptioneers are no longer missing in action.
This unique collection means that the crucial intelligence dimension to history in the first half of the twentieth century is no longer "missing".
Few resources can be of greater use to the student of 20th century history than easy access to the original documentary evidence of how Britain's foreign policy was shaped by secret intelligence.
Professor Michael Goodman
Professor of Intelligence and International Affairs in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London
Professor Matthew Jones
Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Denis Smyth
Professor in the Department of History and the International Relations Programme at the University of Toronto
Gill Bennett, OBE
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Professor Anthony Glees
Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham and directs its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS)
