Description
It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women -- from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman -- acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.
About the Author
Nadine Akkerman is Reader in early modern English Literature at Leiden University and Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She is author of the critically acclaimed Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain (OUP), and of The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (OUP), the third and final volume of which will be published in 2020, and is currently writing the definitive biography of Elizabeth Stuart. She has also published extensively on women's history, diplomacy, and masques, and curated several exhibitions, including the popular Courtly Rivals at the Haags Historisch Museum. In 2017 she was elected to The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received a Special Recognition Award from the World Cultural Council.
Reviews
Akkerman has a knack for telling a good story, and her vignettes of strong, independent, and clever women paint a lively picture of seventeenth-century female spies. What distinguishes her book from most other academic monographs, however, is her very personal approach, which more traditional scholars might frown upon...Most of all, however, the book is proof that there is no excuse any more for excluding women from the narratives of mid-seventeenth-century political activism either on the royalist or parliamentarian side. * Gaby Mahlberg, Journal of Modern History *
Revelatory. * Simon Heffer, Books of the Year 2018: History, The Daily Telegraph *
A history book that will surely inspire future fiction. A work of deep scholarship and clever detective work. * Leanda de Lisle, Books of the Year 2018, BBC History Magazine *
A dense, hugely researched and admirably learned history of women spies during the Civil War. * Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times *
A brilliant book. * Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph *
A triumph of scholarly rigour, original thinking and crisp prose. It is, in every sense, a cracking book. * Jessie Childs, The Daily Telegraph *
Invisible Agents is a work of deep scholarship that suggests Akkerman would have made an excellent spy catcher. * Leanda de Lisle, The Times *
Brimming with fascinating detail ... Akkerman's archival dissections admirably emulate the painstaking vigilance of early modern spy masters. * Clare Jackson, The Times Literary Supplement *
Pioneering ... a most valuable book, highlighting women's contribution to the conspiratorial world of mid-17th-century Britain, while also offering a thought provoking exercise in gender and historical methods. * Ann Hughes, BBC History Magazine *
An intriguing book ... [Akkerman's] own remarkable ability to ferret out secrets is often as great as that of the spies she writes about. Time after time, women whose lives, careers and even names have been forgotten or misread spring into stealthy, double-dealing life on the page. * Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review *
Invisible Agents breaks significant new ground in its focus on the special roles of Royalist and Parliamentarian 'she-intelligencers' and their hidden world. This is a model monograph, meticulously researched and relentlessly questioning, which succeeds admirably in uncovering closely guarded secrets. * R. C. Richardson, Times Higher Education *
immensely readable...Akkerman has a knack for telling a good story, and her vignettes of strong, independent, and clever women paint a lively picture of seventeenth-century female spies. * Gaby Mahlberg, Journal of Modern History *
Richly illustrated, scrupulously researched. * Frances E. Dolan, Renaissance Quarterly *
This is a book full of rich and engaging details...this is a testament to the thoroughness of her academic practice. Ultimately, Invisible Agents is a text that serves as an invaluable starting point for the re-situation of women into narratives of early modern spying, and political history, offering readers across disciplines a varied and voluminous history of women's roles in seventeenth-century espionage. * Rose Hilton, AC Review of Books *
A ground-breaking book looking at a previously unexplored aspect of the world of espionage ... Founded on work in a wide variety of archives, many of them previously undiscovered, Akkerman shines a light on one of the dark corners of the world of spies. * Military History Monthly *
For a serious examination of the role of women in intelligence, turn to Nadine Akkerman's Invisible Agents. Doubly invisible, both as agents and in historical records, these women were at the heart of the intelligence network, yet they have never hitherto received the 'glory of Martyrs'. * Teresa Levonian Cole, Country Life *
Fascinating and insightful ... Akkerman lifts the veil not only on a number of individual she-intelligencers, but also on the complex and varied business of female espionage in mid-seventeenth-century Britain. * Lena Steveker, English Studies *
Akkerman deftly handles the challenges of writing about [female spies], assembling fragments of evidence where she can, acknowledging gaps where she must. Her book has much to teach us not only about espionage but about the creation of historical narratives. * Rachel Weil, American Historical Review *
A dazzling study of a truly neglected subject, which ably demonstrates the gendered dimension of early modern spy-craft, and the unique ways in which women were able to operate. It is written by one of the foremost early modern textual-historical scholars of her generation and marshals an almost unmatched expertise in working with an impressive range of European and international archives of the period. The book delivers a series of fascinating case studies - including Charles I's prison correspondence, Secretary Thurloe, as well as female practitioners Susan Hyde, Elizabeth Murray, Elizabeth Carey, Anne Halkett, and Aphra Behn - all of which rest on a remarkable and overwhelming weight of archival research. This is an important book that will be widely read and cited, and which will have significant impact on many fields not least those of early modern gender and women's writing, but also political and diplomatic history. * Professor James Daybell, University of Plymouth *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198849421
Author Nadine Akkerman
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 380g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 152mm * 24mm
About the Author
Nadine Akkerman is Reader in early modern English Literature at Leiden University and Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She is author of the critically acclaimed Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain (OUP), and of The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (OUP), the third and final volume of which will be published in 2020, and is currently writing the definitive biography of Elizabeth Stuart. She has also published extensively on women's history, diplomacy, and masques, and curated several exhibitions, including the popular Courtly Rivals at the Haags Historisch Museum. In 2017 she was elected to The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received a Special Recognition Award from the World Cultural Council.
Reviews
Akkerman has a knack for telling a good story, and her vignettes of strong, independent, and clever women paint a lively picture of seventeenth-century female spies. What distinguishes her book from most other academic monographs, however, is her very personal approach, which more traditional scholars might frown upon...Most of all, however, the book is proof that there is no excuse any more for excluding women from the narratives of mid-seventeenth-century political activism either on the royalist or parliamentarian side. * Gaby Mahlberg, Journal of Modern History *
Revelatory. * Simon Heffer, Books of the Year 2018: History, The Daily Telegraph *
A history book that will surely inspire future fiction. A work of deep scholarship and clever detective work. * Leanda de Lisle, Books of the Year 2018, BBC History Magazine *
A dense, hugely researched and admirably learned history of women spies during the Civil War. * Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times *
A brilliant book. * Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph *
A triumph of scholarly rigour, original thinking and crisp prose. It is, in every sense, a cracking book. * Jessie Childs, The Daily Telegraph *
Invisible Agents is a work of deep scholarship that suggests Akkerman would have made an excellent spy catcher. * Leanda de Lisle, The Times *
Brimming with fascinating detail ... Akkerman's archival dissections admirably emulate the painstaking vigilance of early modern spy masters. * Clare Jackson, The Times Literary Supplement *
Pioneering ... a most valuable book, highlighting women's contribution to the conspiratorial world of mid-17th-century Britain, while also offering a thought provoking exercise in gender and historical methods. * Ann Hughes, BBC History Magazine *
An intriguing book ... [Akkerman's] own remarkable ability to ferret out secrets is often as great as that of the spies she writes about. Time after time, women whose lives, careers and even names have been forgotten or misread spring into stealthy, double-dealing life on the page. * Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review *
Invisible Agents breaks significant new ground in its focus on the special roles of Royalist and Parliamentarian 'she-intelligencers' and their hidden world. This is a model monograph, meticulously researched and relentlessly questioning, which succeeds admirably in uncovering closely guarded secrets. * R. C. Richardson, Times Higher Education *
immensely readable...Akkerman has a knack for telling a good story, and her vignettes of strong, independent, and clever women paint a lively picture of seventeenth-century female spies. * Gaby Mahlberg, Journal of Modern History *
Richly illustrated, scrupulously researched. * Frances E. Dolan, Renaissance Quarterly *
This is a book full of rich and engaging details...this is a testament to the thoroughness of her academic practice. Ultimately, Invisible Agents is a text that serves as an invaluable starting point for the re-situation of women into narratives of early modern spying, and political history, offering readers across disciplines a varied and voluminous history of women's roles in seventeenth-century espionage. * Rose Hilton, AC Review of Books *
A ground-breaking book looking at a previously unexplored aspect of the world of espionage ... Founded on work in a wide variety of archives, many of them previously undiscovered, Akkerman shines a light on one of the dark corners of the world of spies. * Military History Monthly *
For a serious examination of the role of women in intelligence, turn to Nadine Akkerman's Invisible Agents. Doubly invisible, both as agents and in historical records, these women were at the heart of the intelligence network, yet they have never hitherto received the 'glory of Martyrs'. * Teresa Levonian Cole, Country Life *
Fascinating and insightful ... Akkerman lifts the veil not only on a number of individual she-intelligencers, but also on the complex and varied business of female espionage in mid-seventeenth-century Britain. * Lena Steveker, English Studies *
Akkerman deftly handles the challenges of writing about [female spies], assembling fragments of evidence where she can, acknowledging gaps where she must. Her book has much to teach us not only about espionage but about the creation of historical narratives. * Rachel Weil, American Historical Review *
A dazzling study of a truly neglected subject, which ably demonstrates the gendered dimension of early modern spy-craft, and the unique ways in which women were able to operate. It is written by one of the foremost early modern textual-historical scholars of her generation and marshals an almost unmatched expertise in working with an impressive range of European and international archives of the period. The book delivers a series of fascinating case studies - including Charles I's prison correspondence, Secretary Thurloe, as well as female practitioners Susan Hyde, Elizabeth Murray, Elizabeth Carey, Anne Halkett, and Aphra Behn - all of which rest on a remarkable and overwhelming weight of archival research. This is an important book that will be widely read and cited, and which will have significant impact on many fields not least those of early modern gender and women's writing, but also political and diplomatic history. * Professor James Daybell, University of Plymouth *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198849421
Author Nadine Akkerman
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 380g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 152mm * 24mm
