Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History by Thomas B. Allen

Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History by Thomas B. Allen. This is a collection of 50 documents which were once considered secret by their governments. To say that they were "declassified" is somewhat of a misnomer because some of the German records were captured after World War II.

The oldest document is from the reign of Queen Elizabeth with the latest being the infamous "yellowcake uranium brief". Most of the standard espionage stories are touched upon. The only major exception was there was nothing on Mata Hari.

The documents are collected in thematic chapters. However some of the documents could easily go in different sections. They do seem rather arbitrary at times. Perhaps a chronological organization would have been better suited to the material.The author occasionally has to reexplain points about say Elizabethan England when they could have been covered at one point.

Each document is described, often there is a picture. Unfortunately a full transcript is not provided and considering some of the reproductions are quite lousy a transcription would have been helpful. There also is a short section on historical impact. No endnotes however there's a bibliography. Recommended for some light reading on the topic and I did learn a few things.

Is available through Abebooks.


This book was provided through Librarything's early review program.