ABSTRACT
This book results from a number of influences. Each of the editors has been studying and/or involved in the intelligence business for some time and, in their work, has sought to develop conceptual thinking as the study of intelligence has become a more mainstream activity than it was thirty years ago. At that time the literature on intelligence, such as it was, was dominated by two main sources: in the United States there was much writing around the consequences of the ‘year of intelligence’ in 1975, when extensive congressional inquiries produced revelations that led to much soul-searching regarding the propriety of intelligence activities both at home and abroad. These inquiries were mirrored to a lesser extent in Australia and Canada. In Western Europe, particularly the UK, there were no such inquiries and the literature was dominated by historical issues, especially those relating to the role of intelligence in the Second World War. Elsewhere, communist or military authoritarian regimes were the order of the day and there was really no literature at all.
