F. H. Hinsley – författare

With many colourful anecdotes and vivid descriptions, this is the first authentic account of daily life at Government Communications Headquarters, Bletchley Park, the most successful intelligence agency in history. Described by Churchill as the 'secret weapon' that 'won the war', the men and women of Bletchley Park here combine to write their story in full.This book gives fascinating insights into recruitment and training, together with a full and accurate account of codes and ciphers and how they are broken.

This is a colourful and authentic account of daily life and work at Government Communications Headquarters, Bletchley Park, the most successful intelligence agency in history.By 1942 the codebreakers of Bletchley Park and its out-stations were breaking some 4,000 German signals a day, and almost as many from Italy and Japan, eavesdropping on enemy communications up to the highest levels of command. Their colleagues used these decrypts to produce Ultra intelligence which gave a detailed, accurate, and up-to-date picture of enemy strengths, weaknesses, and intentions. The codebreakers' contribution to the war effort was invaluable: Churchill described them as the `secret weapon' that `won the war'.For the first time a group of the men and women who worked on this top-secret enterprise have combined to write their story in full. Here, they vividly describe their recruitment and training, their feelings and activities, and recall in detail their successes and failures.

Until 1970 it would have been premature to attempt a comprehensive and impartial account of British foreign policy from 1905 to 1916, during the secretaryship of Sir Edward Grey. Apart from the difficulty of passing judgement on matters that were still controversial, the confidential archives of the British government for the years after 1905 did not begin to become available until the 1950s. By 1970, however, scholars had thoroughly digested the contents of these voluminous records up to 1916, and a statement of their findings was even overdue. In this volume many of the British historians who have been in the forefront of the research report on their work. They establish the facts about a period which saw fundamental changes in Great Britain's position in the world, and offer assessments of the British government's contribution to such important developments as the evolution of the Anglo-French Entente, Anglo-German rivalry before 1914, the outbreak of the first World War and the origin of the League of Nations.

In the last years of the nineteenth century peace proposals were first stimulated by fear of the danger of war rather than in consequence of its outbreak. In this study of the nature and history of international relations Mr Hinsley presents his conclusions about the causes of war and the development of men's efforts to avoid it. In the first part he examines international theories from the end of the middle ages to the establishment of the League of Nations in their historical setting. This enables him to show how far modern peace proposals are merely copies or elaborations of earlier schemes. He believes there has been a marked reluctance to test these theories not only against the formidable criticisms of men like Rousseau, Kant and Bentham, but also against what we have learned about the nature of international relations and the history of the practice of states. This leads him to the second part of his study - an analysis of the origins of the modern states' system and of its evolution between the eighteenth century and the First World War.

Professor Hinsley's book, first published in 1966, offers a general survey of the history of the theory of sovereignty, which seeks to illuminate the theory's character and function by stressing the changing social, political and economic frameworks within and between the political societies in which it has developed. It also spans and connects the different intellectual aspects of the concept of sovereignty: philosophical, legal, historical and political. For this new edition Professor Hinsley has wholly rewritten the last chapter to bring the history up to date, and to make some new concluding remarks.