Audiobooks by Christopher Andrew

What If?: A BBC Radio 4 alternative history

Christopher Andrew and guests ask what would have happened if major historical moments had taken a different course In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain, and many more. What if George Washington had lost the War of Independence? What if Columbus had never reached the New World? And what if Elizabeth I had married? In the company of an array of guest experts, Andrew tackles these and other questions, imagining a world where cars are banned from our cities, JFK survived the shooting in Dallas, or the Great Fire of London never took place. Full of thought-provoking hypotheses and lively speculation, this counterfactual history series not only suggests what could have happened, but refreshes our memories of what actually occurred during some of history's key turning points. In contemplating an alternate story, we are reminded how extraordinary it is that things did indeed result in the way that they did. Episode list 1. What if Hitler had won the war against Russia in 1941? 2. What if John F Kennedy had survived the shooting in Dallas? 3. What if the 1979 referendum had led to Scottish independence? 4. What if Columbus hadn't reached the New World? 5. What if we'd kept the trains and banned cars from our main towns and cities? 6. What if King Edward VIII had married Mrs Simpson and remained on the throne? 7. What if Pontius Pilate had freed Jesus? 8. What if the Spanish Armada had landed in Kent in 1588? 9. What if Labour leader John Smith had lived? 10. What if either the royalist or parliamentary armies had achieved outright victory at the battle of Edgehill? 11. What if the NHS had never been introduced in 1948? 12. What if Britain had not discovered the North Sea Oil? 13. What if there was no fire of London in 1666? 14. What if Alfred the Great was defeated in 878? 15. What if German Emperor Wilhelm I had died ten years earlier? 16. What if germ warfare were to be used against the US? 17. What if there was no 1947 Agriculture Act? 18. What if Martin Luther King had survived the assassination on 4 April 1968? 19. What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo? 20. What if the Diggers had spread in 1649, and there were no slaves, lawyers or accountants? 21. What if Yasser Arafat had been assassinated in 1968? 22. What if Mary Tudor had completed the Counter-Reformation as planned? 23. What if the First Crusade had failed in 1095? 24. What if Germany had defeated France at the beginning of World War I in 1914? 25. What if Britain had voted against EU membership in the 1975 EEC Referendum? 26. What if the Russians had won the Space Race? 27. What if Alexander the Great had gone West, not East? 28. What if George Washington had lost the American War of Independence? 29. What if the Germans had discovered that the Allies had cracked the Enigma code during World War II? 30. What if the Nazis had occupied Britain in 1940? 31. What if Elizabeth I had married? 32. What if the Chinese authorities had not sent tanks into Tiananmen Square in June 1989? 33. What if the Zulus had defeated the British in 1879? 34. What if D-Day had failed? Production credits Presented by Professor Christopher Andrew Produced by Ian Bell, Mark Smalley and Isobel Eaton © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Christopher Andrew (Author), Christopher Andrew (Narrator)

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Stars and Spies: The story of Intelligence Operations…

Brought to you by Penguin. A vastly entertaining and unique history of the interaction between spying and showbiz, from the Elizabethan age to the Cold War and beyond. Throughout history, there has been a consistent crossover between show business and espionage, often producing some of the most extraordinary undercover agents, and occasionallyleading to disastrous and dangerous failures. The fact that one relies on publicity and the other on secrecy might seem to rule out a successful symbiosis; but as both require high levels of creative thinking, improvisation, disguise and role-play, they inevitably attract some remarkably similar personalities. Stars and Spies is the first history of the interplay between the two worlds. We travel back to the golden age of theatre and intelligence in the reign of Elizabeth I, where we meet the playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe. In the Restoration we encounter in Aphra Behn the first professional female playwright and the first female spy to work for the British government. We visit Civil War America, Tsarist Russia and fin de siècle Paris where some writers, actors and entertainers become efficient and vital agents, while others are put under surveillance by the burgeoning intelligence services. And as the story moves through the twentieth century and beyond, and the role of spying in word affairs becomes more central, showbiz provides essential cover for agents to gather information while hiding in plain sight. The astonishing array of those who were drafted into the intelligence services includes Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Noel Coward and Alexander Korda. At the same time, spying enters mainstream popular culture, from the adventures of James Bond to the thrillers of John le Carré and long-running TV series such as The Americans. Written by two experts in their fields - Christopher Andrew, arguably the world's leading intelligence historian, and theatre producer and entertainment historian Julius Green - Stars and Spies is a unique and highly entertaining examination of the fascinating links between the intelligence services and show business. © Chris Andrew, Julius Green 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Christopher Andrew, Julius Green (Author), Andrew Wincott (Narrator)

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The Secret World: A History of Intelligence

The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada. Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of World War I, the grasp of intelligence shown by US President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and leading eighteenth-century British statesmen. In this book, distinguished historian Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia-and shows its relevance today.

Christopher Andrew (Author), Clive Chafer (Narrator)

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Defend the Realm

An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism. The book describes how MI5 has been managed, what its relationship has been with government, where it has triumphed, and where it has failed. In all of this no restriction has been placed on the judgments made by the author. Defend the Realm also adds significantly to our knowledge of many celebrated events and notorious individuals and definitively lays to rest a number of persistent myths. Above all, it shows the place of this previously extremely secretive organization within the United Kingdom. Few books could make such an immediate and extraordinary increase to our understanding of British history over the past century.

Christopher Andrew (Author), Robin Sachs (Narrator)

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The Sword and the Shield

Christopher Andrew (Author), Robert Whitfield (Narrator)

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The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

As chief archivist of the KGB's foreign branch, Vasili Mitrokhin had virtually unfettered access to its most closely held secrets. But his government's relentless repression of dissidents at home and abroad and its bungled Afghan war policy disillusioned him. Determined to preserve the truth, Mitrokhin secretly compiled a detailed record of the feared agency's operations abroad. Written with historian Christopher Andrew and backed with meticulous supporting research, what emerges is a chilling chronicle of murder and treachery, slander and corruption, paranoia and purges. KGB placed agents high within British intelligence agencies and American defense contractors; yet they failed to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Scoop Jackson or President Ronald Reagan. And their massive information gathering brought them no international advantages; to the end Soviet officials remained baffled by the West. The Sword and the Shield is a compelling, and historically significant, narrative destined to cast new light on the Soviet era.

Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin (Author), Charles Stransky (Narrator)

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