Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West

Updated with a new Prologue by the Author.

The "riveting" (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China.

Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin's means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing "unprecedented" about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends.

The Cold War started long before 1945. But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is a "deeply researched and artfully crafted" (Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the US President) story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks being launched woefully unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of Eastern superpowers: Russia's past and present and the global ascendance of China.

Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America's clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provided key lessons for countering China today. This "authoritative, sweeping" (Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize--winning author of Embers of War) history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century.

Author: Calder Walton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 09/15/2026
Pages: 640
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9781668000700

About the Author
Walton, Calder: - Calder Walton is one of the worlds leading scholars of intelligence and national security. Ahistorian at Harvards Kennedy School of Government, he received a doctorate in history from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he also helped to write MI5s authorized hundred-year history. He is general editor of the three-volumeCambridge History of Espionage and Intelligence. His previous book, Empire of Secrets, won the Longman-History Today Book of the Year award. His research has appeared in leading academic journals and in print and broadcast media on both sides of the Atlantic. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife and son, who teaches him the true nature of subterfuge.