"From fear of sabotage on the London Underground to the first anthrax bomb and massive outdoor tests, Britain and Biological Warfare tells the largely untold history of biological weapons research and policy in the UK. Drawing on recently declassified documents, Brian Balmer charts the secret history of germ warfare policy from the 1930s to the mid-1960s.

He traces how biological warfare research rose to equal status with atomic weaponry in British defence policy, and its subsequent decline as the UK adopted a defensive stance towards germ warfare. Throughout this period scientific advice, rather than intelligence reports, played a key role in defining the nature of the biological weapons threat and the appropriate response.

Britain and Biological Warfare explores the role of independent scientific advisers in shaping one of the most significant biological warfare research programmes in history."--BOOK JACKET.