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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5794876" data-attributes="member: 54707">Today the family and I went to the library. I was  really there just renewing stuff, but decided to look around  anyhow.  On the new book shelf I saw Carte  Blanche: 007. Now I've never been a big fan of the James Bond  character, not as presented by Ian Fleming. Buddies of mine used to try and get  me to read his books, and I did but was always sorely disappointed, given my  experiences with real espionage, and my studies of espionage. Bond always seemed  a cartoon character to me, by comparison to real agents and cases. (An exciting  character, yes, but hardly a really clever one.) Also I thought Bond really,  really sucked as a Detective, a necessary skill for a real agent, and was  terrifically slow on the uptake on anything aside from combat. But I've read Jeff Deaver's work and like it and he is reinventing  Bond (sort of like in the films, and I like this Bond film version much, much  better than most of the previous ones). So I started reading this book, really  liked it, and checked it out. I'm about 3 chapters in and still liking  it. This Bond is to me a lot better. He's an Afghan vet and no longer works for  MI6. I got nothing against MI6, admire the organization, but this Bond is far  looser and more flexible, adaptable, a far better Dick, and he also seems a  far better and more clever agent. Still a real exaggeration, but much more like  a real agent.   Then I went over to the books on CD to see if any good new lectures were  out. I listen to 2 or 3 Modern Scholar lecture series a month. Just finished  Citadels of Power - about castles. Coincidentally, if  you belief in that kinda thing, the latest lecture out was called  The Second Oldest Profession: A World History of Espionage, Part  One. The lecture series is by Professor Jeffrey Burds, Northeaster  University. Burds is associate professor on Russian and Soviet history, on the  history of the KGB, and on espionage in WWII.   The lecture series covers espionage activity from the ancient world up to  the American civil War, which is the period I consider the birth of modern-era  espionage. I'm really, really looking forwards to this lecture. My only regret  is that the course guide is on the 8th disc, so there is no printed course  guide, there's only a PDF. Which would be great if there were a printable  glossary, but there is none. I don't like that. I have to extract all relevant  data myself.   But I am very much looking forward to Part Two already, which I assume will  probably run up to contemporary times.   By the way I've also recently been watching The Secret War  (I think it's on the History channel). I'm enjoying the heck out of it  too. </blockquote>

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