Allan Hepburn
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300104981
- eISBN:
- 9780300148480
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300104981.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Why do spies have such cachet in the twentieth century? Why do they keep reinventing themselves? What do they mean in a political process? This book examines the tradition of the spy narrative from ...
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Why do spies have such cachet in the twentieth century? Why do they keep reinventing themselves? What do they mean in a political process? This book examines the tradition of the spy narrative from its inception in the late nineteenth century through the present day. Ranging from John le Carré's bestsellers to Elizabeth Bowen's novels, from James Bond to John Banville's contemporary narratives, this book sets the historical contexts of these fictions: the Cambridge spy ring; the Profumo Affair; the witch-hunts against gay men in the civil service and diplomatic corps in the 1950s. Instead of focusing on the formulaic nature of the genre, the book emphasizes the responsiveness of spy stories to particular historical contingencies. The book begins by offering a systematic theory of the conventions and attractions of espionage fiction and then examines the British and Irish tradition of spy novels. A final section considers the particular form that American spy narratives have taken as they have cross-fertilized with the tradition of American romance in works such as Joan Didion's Democracy and John Barth's Sabbatical.Less
Why do spies have such cachet in the twentieth century? Why do they keep reinventing themselves? What do they mean in a political process? This book examines the tradition of the spy narrative from its inception in the late nineteenth century through the present day. Ranging from John le Carré's bestsellers to Elizabeth Bowen's novels, from James Bond to John Banville's contemporary narratives, this book sets the historical contexts of these fictions: the Cambridge spy ring; the Profumo Affair; the witch-hunts against gay men in the civil service and diplomatic corps in the 1950s. Instead of focusing on the formulaic nature of the genre, the book emphasizes the responsiveness of spy stories to particular historical contingencies. The book begins by offering a systematic theory of the conventions and attractions of espionage fiction and then examines the British and Irish tradition of spy novels. A final section considers the particular form that American spy narratives have taken as they have cross-fertilized with the tradition of American romance in works such as Joan Didion's Democracy and John Barth's Sabbatical.
Mike McConville and Luke Marsh
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198822103
- eISBN:
- 9780191861192
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198822103.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter reveals how the judiciary succumbed to executive pressure in regard to subsequent drafts of the Judges’ Rules. This occurred in a manner which directly contests the constitutional ...
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This chapter reveals how the judiciary succumbed to executive pressure in regard to subsequent drafts of the Judges’ Rules. This occurred in a manner which directly contests the constitutional principle that nothing should be said or done to shake confidence in the good sense and freedom from bias of those who have to administer justice, a principle earlier set out by the Home Office itself. The analysis shows the relevance of contemporaneous occurrences in criminal justice (including, but not limited to, the Sheffield Rhino Whip affair—where police officers assaulted prisoners not suspected of crimes; the Challenor incidents—in which bricks were planted on innocent people; and the Stephen Ward/Christine Keeler/John Profumo scandal—in which the police engaged in dubious arrest, detention, and interrogation practices at the behest of the executive) as it uncovers the constitutional struggle between the executive and the judiciary in which the judges were forced into a climb-down by political threats that went to the heart of British constitutional arrangements and the associated notion of judicial independence.Less
This chapter reveals how the judiciary succumbed to executive pressure in regard to subsequent drafts of the Judges’ Rules. This occurred in a manner which directly contests the constitutional principle that nothing should be said or done to shake confidence in the good sense and freedom from bias of those who have to administer justice, a principle earlier set out by the Home Office itself. The analysis shows the relevance of contemporaneous occurrences in criminal justice (including, but not limited to, the Sheffield Rhino Whip affair—where police officers assaulted prisoners not suspected of crimes; the Challenor incidents—in which bricks were planted on innocent people; and the Stephen Ward/Christine Keeler/John Profumo scandal—in which the police engaged in dubious arrest, detention, and interrogation practices at the behest of the executive) as it uncovers the constitutional struggle between the executive and the judiciary in which the judges were forced into a climb-down by political threats that went to the heart of British constitutional arrangements and the associated notion of judicial independence.
