Photograph by Jerry Bauer,
NY Times

The Politics of James Bond
With Ben Macintyre
18 May 08
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

The talk will be followed by a showing of Goldfinger Cert PG
Directed by: Guy Hamilton, UK 1964, 1hr 45mins

Historian Ben Macintyre, author most recently of the bestselling ZigZag, explores the politics of James Bond and his creator, Ian Fleming (2008 is the centenary of his birth), in his new book. Fleming's 007 emerged against the background of the Second World War and the Cold War, and Bond's world was based on the realities (and fantasies) of Fleming's life as a wartime spy-master and peacetime bon viveur. Macintyre looks at the real people on whom the writer based his fictional creations - friends, colleagues, lovers, and of course, the notorious villains.

Exploring the tradition of spy fiction past and present - with specific attention to the Cold War - Macintyre explains the astonishing legacy of the Bond books and the enduring appeal of a fictional secret agent who not only lived twice, but proved to be immortal.