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A Short History of Deception: Espionage, Misdirection and Criminality Through the Ages
The art of deception has been an integral part of our human story, one where we want, but rarely get, all the sordid details. Even our myths (the Wooden Horse of Troy) abound with instances of inspired duplicity. The resourcefulness required to steal weighty secrets from your enemies (and sometimes from your friends) and the degree of ingenuity involved in laying false trails to bamboozle and misdirect—and to convince the world that you don’t exist—have often been the difference between success and failure in war, revolution, organised crime, and competitive chess (though we won’t be dealing with the latter). This close study of the wild goose chase and the double bluff will examine the chicanery with which Sir Francis Walsingham stabilised the Protestant revolution, how spies and informers always seemed to betray Irish rebellions (until Michael Collins), how Bletchley Park knew what the Germans were doing before they did, how the Mafia managed to fly under the radar for decades, and why the initials KGB still sound more awe-inspiring than the CIA.
Dr. Myles Dungan (PhD Trinity College, Dublin, 2012) is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster. He currently presents the weekly RTE Radio 1 programme 'The History Show'. He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the UCD School of History and is the recipient of two Fulbright Awards. He has taught Irish history in UCD, Trinity College and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history (including 'Irish Voices from the Great War', 'How the Irish Won the West' and 'Mr. Parnell’s Rottweiler').
8 Mondays
10.30 - 12.30
Sept 27, Oct 04, 11, 18, (Bank Holiday Oct 25), NOv 01, 08, 15, 22
Online
• Defending the Protestant revolution: spies and spymasters in Tudor and Jacobite England
• Croppy lie down: British penetration of Irish revolutionary organisations from Magan to Millen
• War in the Shadows: the Irish War of Independence intelligence network of Michael Collins
• The Man Who Never Was: Spying, bamboozling and codebreaking in two world wars
• The Cambridge Circus: 20th Century British Intelligence and its failures
• From Wild Bill to Mild Bill: the OSS, the CIA and modern American intelligence gathering.
• The FBI and Mafia – reining in the bolting horse.
• The appliance of science – how espionage and criminal investigation has used technology and science to catch spies and criminals
- Christopher Andrew - The Secret World
- A Climate of Treason - Andrew Boyle
- Joseph E. Connell - The Shadow War
- John Douglas and Mark Olshaker - Mindhunter
- T.Ryle Dwyer - The Squad
- Keith Jeffrey - MI6
- R.V.Jones - Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945
- John Le Carré - (Pretty much anything)
- Val McDermid - Forensics
- Selwyn Raab - Five Families
- Jeffrey T. Richelson - A Century of Spies
At the end of this course the student should have acquired a basic knowledge of the topic, sufficient to encourage them to pursue independent research in the subject.