Book of Spies

Source: Intelligence and National Security Journal

Few readers of Intelligence and National Security will be familiar with the Jianshu, a Chinese treatise on the uses of spies dating from 1855. But as a rare ‘premodern, dedicated contemplation of spycraft’ (xiii), here translated into English by Ralph D. Sawyer under the title Book of Spies, it deserves a wider readership. The original Chinese text is short, comparable in length to no more than two articles in Intelligence and National Security, but Sawyer has substantially amended his translation with a foreword and explications touching on salient points.

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