Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
Looking-Glass Wars
Spies on British Screens since 1960
by Alan Burton
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Looking-Glass Wars: Spies on British Screens since 1960 is a detailed historical and critical overview of espionage in British film and television in the important period since 1960. From that date, the British spy screen was transformed under the influence of the tremendous success of James Bond in the cinema (the spy thriller), and of the new-style spy writing of John le Carré and Len Deighton (the espionage story). In the 1960s, there developed a popular cycle of spy thrillers in the cinema and on television. The new study looks in detail at the cycle which in previous work has been largely neglected in favour of the James Bond films. The study also brings new attention to espionage on British television and popular secret agent series such as Spy Trap, Quiller and The Sandbaggers. It also gives attention to the more 'realistic' representation of spying in the film and television adaptations of le Carré and Deighton, and other dramas with a more serious intent. In addition, there is wholly original attention given to 'nostalgic' spy fictions on screen, adaptations of classic stories of espionage which were popular in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, and to 'historical' spy fiction, dramas which treated 'real' cases of espionage and their characters, most notably the notorious Cambridge Spies. Detailed attention is also given to the 'secret state' thriller, a cycle of paranoid screen dramas in the 1980s which portrayed the intelligence services in a conspiratorial light, best understood as a reaction to excessive official secrecy and anxieties about an unregulated security service. The study is brought up-to-date with an examination of screen espionage in Britain since the end of the Cold War.
The approach is empirical and historical. The study examines the production and reception, literary and historical contexts of the films and dramas. It is the first detailed overview of the British spy screen in its crucial period since the 1960s and provides fresh attention to spy films, series and serials never previously considered.
About the Author:
Alan Burton is an experienced teacher and researcher of the British screen. He has taught at De Montfort University, the University of Hull and the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and at Klagenfurt University in Austria. He is currently Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester, Research Associate at the Cinema and Television History research centre at De Montfort University, and an advisor on cinema and television for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He has published widely on the history of British cinema, including studies on left-political film, film directors and genre. His Historical Dictionary of British Cinema (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, co-authored with Steve Chibnall) was Winner, Library Journal Best Reference of 2013 (US), and his Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) was Winner, Outstanding Reference Source, RUSA Committee, American Library Association, 2017. He is co-founder of the Journal of Popular British Cinema (1998-2003) and the Journal of British Cinema and Television (2004- ). In 2014, he was awarded a three-year, full-time research grant by the Austrian Science Fund for the project 'British Spy Fiction: Genre, History and Popular Culture'. Looking-Glass Wars: Spies on British Screens since 1960 is a major outcome of the grant award.
See the publisher website: Vernon Press
> From the same author:
Spies on British Screens (2018)
Journal of British Cinema and Television Volume 15, Issue 3
Dir. Laura Crossley, Nicholas Barnett and Alan Burton
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Historical Dictionary of British Cinema (2013)
by Alan Burton and Steve Chibnall
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph (2009)
by Alan Burton and Tim O'Sullivan
Subject: Director > Basil Dearden
> On a related topic:
Espionage and Exile (2016)
Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
British Thrillers, 1950–1979 (2020)
845 Films of Suspense, Mystery, Murder and Espionage
The Blunt Affair (2020)
Official Secrecy and Treason in Literature, Television and Film, 1980-89
Killing Children in British Fiction (2025)
Thatcherism to Brexit
by Dominic Dean
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Literature and Sound Film in Mid-Century Britain (2025)
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Uncanny Landscapes in 21st Century British Cinema (2025)
The Pestilence in the Ditch
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Adult Themes (2025)
British Cinema and the X Certificate in the Long 1960s
Dir. Anne Etienne, Benjamin Halligan and Christopher Weedman
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Cinema, Culture, Scotland (2025)
Selected Essays
Dir. Colin McArthur and Jonathan Murray
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Soho on Screen (2025)
Cinematic Spaces of Bohemia and Cosmopolitanism, 1948-1963
by Jingan Young
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Beyond the BBFC (2025)
Local and regional film censorship in the UK
by Sian Barber
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Back
