A great historian and writer
Dear sirs: You are invited me to write a review of the nice book Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda by the professor John Keegan. It is an honour for me and I give you many thanks.
The book, with his almost 400 pages, is easy readable and amusing too. Our military historian introduces us in the world of intelligence at the Chapter one- Knowledge of enemy, with a travel over 3.000 year of military history, fron the ancient Egipt to our days.
He follows with other six interesting chapters looking over from the hunting of Napoleon at the Mediterranean Sea for Admiral Nelson in 1798; the Stonewall Johnson?s campaign of American Civil War at the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in 1862; the key importance of the almost new wireless comunications in First Worl War, with his focus at the gallant and tragic cruiser`s campaign of Admiral Von Spee at the end of 1914; the breaking of Enigma codes and its capital influence in the Creta Campaig and the final loss of the island; the naval victory at Midway in relation to the American previus penetration of japanese ciphers in June, 1942; the Battle of Atlantic and the breaking of German submarine radio codes 1940-1945; the capital importance of human intelligence in face of German?s secret new weapons, and; at last, an evaluation of the long journey of military intelligence since 1945 to our days.
Professor Keegan includes in this book an aditional reward for us: a conclusion, The Value of Military Intelligence, in order to calm us from the excitement of the previus chapters, I think.
This is the first Keegan?s book that I have read (I am a great reader from my childhood and I am almost at my ?60s) and it has be a great surprise. He is a great historian and a great writer too. It is clear, detailed and elegantly writtem. His maps are beautiful too.
I warmly recomend that book to the people who likes history in general, military history in particular and to the intelligence scholars.
Thanks, and have a nice reading!
