num_pages: 367
description: The terms "Gestapo" and "KGB" have taken on an ominous meaning in every modern language, and the apparatus behind them inspires universal terror. But while there are many books about espionage, until now very little has been written about the history of secret policing, which played such a grim role in the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century.Robert J. Stove begins his story of how secret police became a central institution of modern life with Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Elizabeth I of England who created a network of secret agents and assassins to subvert the Queen's Catholic opponents. He concludes with a fascinating portrait of J. Edgar Hoover, whose surveillance of "enemies within" put American democracy to the test.At the heart of The Unsleeping Eye is a provocative account of how secret police helped build and sustain the modern totalitarian state. Joseph Fouche, Napoleon's minister of police, made surveillance and informing into an art form ("Where are are three," Fouche once said, "I always have one listening") and coupled spying with propaganda techniques that made it doubly effective. Stove chronicles the development of domestic surveillance in Russia, from the time of Ivan the Terrible to its final refinement under Stalin, who brought Lenin's ideal of "organized terror" to perfection in collaboration with his brutal head of secret police, Lavrenti Beria. ("You bring me the man," Beria once said chillingly, "and I'll find you the crime.") He also shows how the Gestapo and other police organizations led by demented individuals like Heinrich Himmler defined the essence of Nazism, part of which was Himmler's deluded notion that "the members of the Gestapo are men with human kindness, human hearts, and absolute rightness."The inside story of the secret policemen who defined the state of their art, The Unsleeping Eye takes us into the darkest corners of government. It is a narrative filled with forceful personalities and unsettling anecdotes, which leaves us wondering about the brave new worlds of manipulation and terror that may await us.
language: English
title: The unsleeping eye: A brief history of secret police
titlecomplete: The unsleeping eye: A brief history of secret police
genres: History, Politics
ratings_count: 6
publisher: Duffy & Snellgrove