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Table of Contents
About the Book
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.
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.
About the Author
Photography by Joy LeDuc
Calder Walton is one of the world’s leading scholars of intelligence and national security. A historian at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he received a doctorate in history from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he also helped to write MI5’s authorized hundred-year history. He is general editor of the three-volume Cambridge 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.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 15, 2026)
- Length: 640 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668000700
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Raves and Reviews
“Calder Walton’s Spies is groundbreaking, expert insight into the current geopolitical collision between Western democracies and autocracies— with particular focus on Russia and China. Meticulous scholarship meets fast paced storytelling that could be from a spy novel. Spies highlights the central role of intelligence to US statecraft. Walton lifts the veil on how intelligence really works. This is a must-read.”
– John Kerry, former U.S. Secretary of State
“A masterpiece! . . . . As Spies vividly demonstrates, we are living through the latest stage of an Epic Intelligence War Between East and West which began a century ago and shows no sign of ending.”
– Christopher Andrew, emeritus professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Cambridge and author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5
“Original research and sharp writing.”
– Foreign Affairs
“Calder Walton’s deeply-researched and artfully crafted book offers a masterclass in 20th century and contemporary history. . . . Spanning the Bolshevik Revolution to the war in Ukraine, it is essential reading for anyone trying to understanding the complicated trajectory of current events.”
– Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the U.S. president and senior director for European and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council, 2017-2019
“Gripping as a spy thriller, accessible and well-researched as the best history, this is an epic account of the global espionage game between Russia and America from Lenin to Putin, a world history through spying.”
– Simon Sebag Montefiore, author The World: A Family History of Humanity
“Engrossing history … crisp and authoritative.”
– Financial Times
"Spies grabs you from the opening page and never lets go. One of our foremost historians of the East-West intelligence war takes us deep inside this grand and often spine-chilling struggle, which predated the Cold War and still rages today. Authoritative, sweeping, chock full of fresh and riveting details, this is a gem of a book."
– Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embers of War
“In an era when disinformation, election interference, and cyber sabotage dominate the headlines, Walton reminds us that Putin didn’t invent any of this — he inherited it. Essential reading for anyone trying to understand where we are and how we got here.”
– Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Communications Director and author of All the Wrong Moves
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