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The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The first mention of espionage in world literature is in the Book of Exodus.'God sent out spies into the land of Canaan'. From there, Christopher Andrew traces the shift in the ancient world from divination to what we would recognize as attempts to gather real intelligence in the conduct of military operations, and considers how far ahead of the West - at that time - China and India were. He charts the development of intelligence and security operations and capacity through, amongst others, Renaissance Venice, Elizabethan England, Revolutionary America, Napoleonic France, right up to sophisticated modern activities of which he is the world's best-informed interpreter. What difference have security and intelligence operations made to course of history? Why have they so often forgotten by later practitioners? This fascinating book provides the answers.

"The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada. Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of World War I, the grasp of intelligence shown by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and leading eighteenth-century British statesmen. In this book, the first global history of espionage ever written, distinguished historian Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia--and shows us its relevance."--

Successful delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is dependent upon mobilising private sector finance. From a lending perspective, this requires banks to co-invest or otherwise divert more resources to development finance. To provide insights into the effectiveness of this important initiative, this paper reviews key literature across Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar using a defined set of keyword searches. Four main themes of future research are identified. First, the international political economy has an influence on the competitive conditions in development finance and these forces need to be explained. Second, the structure of development projects affects the extent to which private sector capital is willing to be mobilised. More insights are needed into how private sector banks can be influenced. Third, the manner in which development banks participate in development projects affects the availability of credit. A greater understanding of their role could unlock greater financing flows. Finally, it is shown that risk appetite and mitigation of development finance affects pricing and credit availability which is another critical component of delivering the SDGs.