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Recent Reviews
Wright Thompson
Rave The Times (UK) Part investigative journalism, part catharsis. Thompson travels back and forth through space and time, describing a brutal murder on one page, riffing about the blues on another. The story meanders like the myriad tributaries of the Mississippi. The writing is often breathtaking, brutality amplified through perfectly crafted prose.
Robert Darnton
Rave The Times (UK) Darnton examines poems, gossip, food, amusements, scandals, the bonnets that women wore and the songs that were sung. He juxtaposes erudite philosophy with base rumour, showing how one blended into the other ... It’s difficult to summarise a book of such breadth. Darnton has written more than a dozen works on 18th-century France; few scholars understand the revolutionary temper as well as he does. This book is the culmination of a lifetime of scholarly research.
Roger Moorhouse
Positive The Times (UK) A well-constructed and agreeably concise book with a clear narrative drive and fascinating detail ... Most of the book instead deals with the familiar ground of Nazi atrocities. But perhaps that doesn’t matter. This story is told with considerable grace; it’s a worthy introduction for those unacquainted with the crimes done to Poland.
Christopher Clark
Rave The Times (UK) This book...offers something refreshingly original — it’s fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive. Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows. Thousands of quickened hearts meld into one revolution, a being of mercurial mood. Clark’s prose is beautiful but also crystal clear; he clarifies as he adorns.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Rave The Times (UK) A rollicking tale, a kaleidoscope of savagery, sex, cruelty and chaos ... Histories of the world usually disappoint; the breadth of the subject makes fascinating detail unaffordable. Devoid of drama, they read like a computer manual. This book, however, has personality and a soul. It’s also outrageously funny ... It’s dizzying but delightful. Montefiore has the confidence to speed past topics that bore him ... By focusing on family, Montefiore provides an intimacy usually lacking in global histories ... This book is more than just a cornucopia of violence. It’s also brimming with sex, much of it incestuous ... It’s impossible to exaggerate the bizarre behaviour that power inspires. That’s what makes history fun, and this is an enormously entertaining book.
Jonathan Eig
Mixed The Times (UK) Not a demolition job; Eig retains enormous respect for King ... This book is not as enlightening as Eig likes to think, but he’s not the first author to be guilty of overblown self-promotion ... Answers remain elusive.
Reid Mitenbuler
Positive The Times (UK) Freuchen’s life is not easily crammed into a single book, or for that matter a short review ... Mitenbuler tells Freuchen’s story with a light touch. Although he’s rather too fond of mixed metaphors, his prose is wonderfully descriptive. This book oozes cold, hunger and fear, but also joy, love and triumph.
Ben Macintyre
Positive The Sunday Times (UK) Writing a book about PoW escapes is easy since wonderful anecdotes abound. What makes this book so special is that Macintyre looks beyond the sensational into the murky micro-society that was Colditz ... Macintyre has a knack for undermining tales of derring-do ... despite removing the gloss from this subject, Macintyre produces a highly nuanced and often disturbing tale of men struggling to get along in captivity. He’s especially astute when examining the handful of prisoners who had a pathological desire to escape, some of whom were eventually driven insane ... The Colditz story is told with sensitivity and insight, with an eye for telling detail.
Iain MacGregor
Mixed The Sunday Times (UK) It’s not often I find myself complaining of a book being too short ... Ordinary soldiers hardly figure in the narrative. This gives a false impression of ordered decision-making that does not do justice to a battle that was, for the most part, chaos. MacGregor’s approach brings to mind the war books once popular among those armchair generals who preferred battles cleansed of blood and dirt ... This book nevertheless improves significantly in the final chapters when the narrative is taken over by a handful of German diarists who left behind achingly personal recollections of defeat ... MacGregor finds Lidin’s words \'poignant.\' I find them unnerving ... Unfortunately, the Lighthouse is not mentioned again until page 183, then given only brief attention. MacGregor efficiently demolishes the legend, but gives too little detail.
Max Hastings
Rave The Times (UK) Until recently, the disturbing truth about what actually happened 60 years ago has been hidden in often inaccessible academic studies, leaving the public to shelter in cozy ignorance. Enter Hastings, a rock of probity and good sense. He’s combined his investigative skills with his flair for storytelling to produce the most gripping narrative of the crisis I’ve yet encountered. His story unfolds, as it should, as a frightening but hopelessly addictive narrative of 13 nerve-wracking days when the world teetered above an abyss ... While Hastings accepts that Kennedy’s provocations of Castro and Khrushchev helped to bring this crisis into being, he also acknowledges his brilliance at solving it ... Hastings writes with great confidence and wisdom about events he lived through. As he demonstrates, age and experience are great advantages when writing history. As we grow older, we collect more material and become more astute at analysing it. Supremely self-assured, Hastings writes as he pleases, occasionally straying from his path to follow whims — things he just happens to find interesting. Judgments are delivered adroitly, not with a sledgehammer.
Anthony Sattin
Positive The Times (UK) A rather ethereal travel writer ... [Sattin\'s] hopelessly in love with nomads ... That sort of adoration is not conducive to critical thought. Sattin describes nomadic culture in prelapsarian terms — a quiet reminder of Eden in today’s world of greed and perfidy. He repeatedly insists that nomads exhibit a \'sublime harmony . . . with the natural world\'. Yet less doe-eyed scholars have discovered that nomads have not always been paragons of green virtue ... Sattin’s subjectivity is nevertheless endearing. As he admits, this book \'is not a scholarly volume . . . nor is it a definitive history of nomads\'. It is instead an unashamedly impressionistic paean to nomadic life, a bit of history interwoven with travelogue and memoir. His prose mirrors the nomadic life: it wanders across a landscape of 12,000 years, occasionally stopping to graze, constantly changing direction. Dates and precise places are seldom provided because they are unimportant to those of no fixed abode. Where are we? It doesn’t matter. Sensation, not time or place, is what matters ... In a book of sensitivity and grace, Sattin does not just describe the nomadic way of life, but also evokes it. This is a book of beauty and beguiling rhythm that offers unsettling lessons about our present-day world of borders.
Antony Beevor
Rave Air Mail Beevor... commands authority as a historian because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He’s a skilled writer, but his prose is not what makes his books special. Rather, it’s the confidence that his authority conveys ... This is easily the most horrifying war story I’ve ever read. One wonders how Russia could ever contain so much suffering.
Antony Beevor
Rave The Times (UK) Beevor strips away the misty romanticism that once surrounded the revolution ... Likewise, Beevor’s reconstruction of the storming of the Winter Palace on November 7, when Kerensky’s Provisional Government was toppled, is a lot more sordid than Sergei Eisenstein’s depiction in his film, October ... Beevor skilfully recounts a \'fiendishly complex\' war fought on Russia’s periphery, in Belarus, the Baltic, Ukraine, Poland, Siberia and Persia ... Beevor, best known for his formidable book Stalingrad, commands authority as a historian because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He’s a skilled writer, but his prose is not what makes his books special. Rather, it’s the confidence that his authority conveys — one senses that he knows his subject as well as anyone. He allows his mountain of evidence to speak for itself, simply charting the course of this horrible war, exposing its boundless cruelty. This is easily the most horrifying war story I’ve ever read. One wonders how Russia could ever contain so much suffering ... This is an unmerciful book, unceasingly agonising, yet always irresistible. Horror is delivered in relentless rhythm.
Serhii Plokhy
Rave The Times (UK) Superbly crafted but enormously frightening ... The anatomy of these disasters reveals consistent patterns of behaviour; essentially the same story is repeated six times ... Plokhy constructs a formidable case for consigning nuclear power generation to the past. His six case studies are exquisitely rendered with just the right level of technical information to explain the problems without making them incomprehensible or dull. The suspense of reactor crews struggling to find a solution to meltdown makes this book weirdly entertaining ... To solve the energy crisis with nuclear power would require the construction of thousands of reactors worldwide. The problems so perfectly explained in this book would not miraculously disappear; they would proliferate.
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
Rave The Times (UK) Magellan’s greatest skill lay in self-promotion, which perhaps explains those accolades. Fernández-Armesto cuts through the hype, exposing a troubled and dishonest man ... The enormously confident Fernández-Armesto tells this story with gusto, rendering Magellan much more interesting because of his flaws than the cardboard hero we’ve been sold.
Katja Hoyer
Positive The Washington Post There’s nothing particularly new in this assessment. The most impressive feature of this book is not its thesis but its brevity. Until now, I didn’t realize that it was possible to write a short book about Germany. Succinctness is an impressive and sadly undervalued quality in an author. A strict word count is a cruel tyrant; difficult decisions about what goes in have to be made and creativity inevitably curtailed. Hoyer nevertheless manages to pepper her trim narrative with some lovely frills. The mark of a really good short book is its ability to inspire curiosity. Blood and Iron achieves just that.
Tracy Borman
Mixed The Times (UK) While [Borman] doesn’t ignore the institution’s darker aspects, she’s nevertheless in thrall to its \'other-worldliness\' — its magic and mystery ... Borman embraces a huge task, which she carries out reasonably well. A book of this sort requires not only biographical sketches, but also a solid historical context and an analysis of the monarchy’s evolution according to time and taste. The author is quite good with the sketches, but her background knowledge is occasionally shallow and inaccurate, especially when covering the 19th and 20th centuries ... The main fault of this book, however, is that there’s not enough of the weird and wonderful stuff that makes the monarchy enthralling and, to some, repugnant.
Cat Jarman
Rave The Times (UK) ... a mystery and an adventure ... In addition to being a wonderful writer, Jarman is a skilled bioarchaeologist ... like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely performed. Tiny trills of detail give way to pounding drums of drama. Fur-clad Volga boatmen carry us relentlessly towards the exotic. Along the way, Jarman takes a sledgehammer to fantasies of ethnic purity.
James Holland
Rave The Times (UK) Holland is a prolific chronicler of war; his trademark style is to examine it through the experiences of single fighting units ... Holland objects to the way the last year of the war has too often been presented as a seamless narrative of success, an inexorable advance from Normandy to Berlin. He concentrates instead on the forgotten little battles that crowded every day ... The power of Holland’s book lies in the painful intimacy he creates. The reader gets to know these men as if they exist in the present ... Brothers in Arms is painful to read, but impossible to put down. Seldom is war so vividly described. This book is an assault on the senses ... Brothers in Arms is war as it should be described — ordinary men facing extraordinary horror ... Caught up in the drama of battle, we sometimes forget the good men who died. Holland, to his credit, forces us to remember.
Mark Mazower
Mixed The Times (UK) Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University in New York City, revels in complexity. One can sense his frenzied enthusiasm when he describes \'bewildering twists\' and politics of \'mind-boggling\' convolution. While some of the revolution’s conundrums are solved, Mazower throws a host of new ones into the mix. Clarity, it seems, is a contrivance. While this is an altogether impressive book, it left me breathless with confusion ... Mazower’s cornucopia of revolution is best read in small doses, to savour the otherwise overwhelming detail.
Nancy Goldstone
Rave The Times (UK) Goldstone understands that, underneath the silk breeches, face powder and lofty pompadours, these monarchs were real people. They laughed, loved, argued, grieved and fornicated — often rather clumsily. The way they lived their lives at home shaped how they behaved on the world stage ... a virtuoso performance, Goldstone at the peak of her creative abilities ... In describing these familiar political events, Goldstone holds her own against an impressive fraternity of scholars; the depth of her research and the acuity of her insights are outstanding ... The uniqueness of this book, however, lies in the way these characters are brought to life. Tiny details pulse like arterial blood beneath big events ... The pithy footnotes alone are worth the price of this book.) Purists will find her offhand manner annoying, but it has an important effect. Described in 21st-century terms, these characters become so much more accessible ... Thanks to Goldstone’s admirable capacity to probe the minds of these women, we now know them rather well.
Fernando Cervantes
Positive The Times (UK) While this book is not perhaps an apologia, it’s the closest thing to a rehabilitation that the conquistadors are likely to get ... Cervantes skilfully constructs a complex story, packed with disturbing nuance, which obliterates that simplistic narrative of brutal conquistadors subduing innocent indigenes. The depth of research in this book is astonishing, but even more impressive is the analytical skill Cervantes applies to his discoveries. He is equally at home in cultural, literary, linguistic, artistic, economic and political history. All this sophisticated scholarship could so easily result in an unwieldy book, easy to admire, but difficult to read. Cervantes, however, conveys complex arguments in delightfully simple language, and most importantly knows how to tell a good story ... In the end the author achieves his purpose: he successfully reconstructs the complicated context from which the conquistadors emerged. Yet that should not erase nor excuse their brutality ... While this rehabilitation of the conquistadors is undoubtedly impressive, some readers might be dismayed by the cold rationality of its conclusions.
Charlie English
Rave The Times (UK) The Gallery of Miracles & Madness is a superbly told story of worlds colliding ... There’s so much that’s wonderful about this book; it’s hard to know where to start heaping praise. It is by turns intriguing, tragic, horrifying and occasionally funny. I was sad when I finished it, a feeling I usually only get from novels ... [English] writes in a carefully controlled and phlegmatic fashion, allowing outrage to emerge from the events themselves, rather than from the manner of their telling ... Hitler is Hitler; there’s not much new that can be said, yet English somehow does .
Julie Kavanagh
Rave The Times (UK) Kavanagh devotes special attention to Parnell, for good reason, because he is so important to this story and so beguiling. It’s refreshing to encounter an author willing to take the time to render political personalities in such fine detail ... The tale of the Phoenix Park murders is not unfamiliar, but Kavanagh recounts it with a great sense of drama ... Kavanagh’s account reminds me of the very best of true crime, the sort that Dominick Dunne used to write for ?Vanity Fair. Like Dunne, Kavanagh never hurries; she takes the time to describe characters and places with exquisite detail. An engaging story is rendered beautiful because of the tiny ephemera that a less sensitive author might have carelessly discarded.
Max Hastings
Rave The Sunday Times (UK) The immediacy of this book obliterates the cold detachment that time’s passage usually allows. We feel in our bones torpedoes hitting home. Hastings takes his readers into the bomb-blasted wardroom of the carrier Indomitable ... Given the dramatic quality of this book, it seems wrong to summarise the four-day ordeal British sailors endured. That would spoil the impact of a drama superbly told ... The delight lies in the detail, the percussive power of tiny facts ... All this detail renders these men appropriately human. That’s the way war should be told, but so often it isn’t.
Malcolm Gladwell
Mixed The Times (UK) ... [an] intriguing but insubstantial little book ... The Bomber Mafia reminds me of a really good podcast—a fascinating story is appealingly delivered ... While I admire brevity, the subject demands more depth than this volume provides. Gladwell simplifies the evolution of bombing strategy into a clash of personalities ... Personalities were indeed important (they always are) but this approach does not give sufficient attention to the larger forces at work, in particular how morality adapted to ever more destructive technology ... Readers new to this subject will find The Bomber Mafia engaging but those who’ve read a book or two about the air campaign will find it naive and shallow.
Rachel Holmes
Rave The Times (UK) ... It’s impossible to summarise adequately a book so magnificent. This biography is, granted, very long at almost 1,000 pages, but a life so large merits comprehensive treatment. Unlike so many excessively long books recently published, this is not simply a collection of facts carelessly assembled; it is instead a sophisticated symphony of intriguing and complex analysis, delivered in mellifluous harmony. It’s a feminist book, as is appropriate to the subject, but feminist theory is used as a scalpel, not a sledgehammer ... there’s nothing linear about this wonderful book, but its direction is always clear. If it fails to make the shortlists of the main history prizes, I’ll be very cross indeed ... Holmes sublimely illuminates Sylvia’s extraordinary life.
Richard Ovenden
Rave The Times (UK) ... a passionate and illuminating account of the obliteration of knowledge that has occurred over the past three millennia. Ovenden’s aim is \'not just to highlight the destruction of [libraries] . . . but also to acknowledge and celebrate the ways librarians and archivists have fought back\'. Working in a library is usually a rather safe profession, but the characters in this book are superheroes who fight and die for the cultures they are obliged to protect ... This splendid book reveals how, in today’s world of fake news and alternative facts, libraries stand defiant as guardians of truth.
James Holland
Rave The Times (UK) Historians too often neglect [the] emotional tapestry [of war]. War is characterised as arrows on a map, tables of munitions, cold casualty statistics. Holland’s great skill lies in bringing these warriors back to life with vivid prose. He’s an enormously prolific historian of the war, but each book he produces is constructed with great care and emotional commitment. He introduces the reader not just to well-known generals, but also to ordinary soldiers ... Since Holland never romanticises them, his account seems honest ... [Holland\'s] war is anarchy. His soldiers fight heroically, but also die brutally, torn to shreds or burnt to cinders. They’re racked with dysentery and typhoid or become gibbering wrecks in field hospitals. Holland is obsessed with war, but fortunately does not seem to love it. He recognises its beauty, but also its vileness.
Frederick Taylor
Positive The Times (UK) Despite its unfortunate title, this is a fascinating and well-written book about how two nations embraced the prospect of war. By examining a turbulent year from the ground up, Taylor has inadvertently exposed crucial differences in national characteristics. The Germans, despite all their feverish enthusiasm for Hitler’s militaristic ambitions, were spiritually ill- prepared for war. The British, in contrast, had no martial enthusiasm, but fatalistically accepted war’s inevitability.
Kate Lister
Rave The Times (UK) Buckle your trousers, fasten your seatbelts, here comes Kate Lister. Her curious history of sex is a wild ride, made all the more enjoyable by a wonderfully irreverent approach. If she ever tires of being an academic historian she might try stand-up comedy. I’ve never had so much fun learning stuff ... When discussing sex Lister steadfastly refuses to beat around the bush. She provides a trigger warning at the beginning: \'As far as offensive language goes, you are now entering a hard hat area.\' This is not a book for prudes ... [Lister] is first and foremost a historian with a gargantuan knowledge of sexual practices from classical times to the present ... What makes her so special is her ability to communicate, a talent in short supply in academia ... So many of the hang-ups and phobias about sex have a common origin, namely male fear of female passion. And that explains why this book needed to be written by a woman. Had a man attempted what Lister has achieved so perfectly, it would have been at best mansplaining and at worst rather creepy. It would probably also have been deadly dull — some of the most boring books I’ve read were histories of sex written by men. Bravo to Lister for her honesty, authority, candour and especially her humour.
Erik Larson
Pan The Washington Post Larson, a neophyte when it comes to British history, falls victim to entrenched English propaganda. His book, which chronicles the period from May 1940 to May 1941, when Churchill supposedly saved .England,. is firmly rooted in that green and pleasant land, conveniently ignoring those dark satanic mills ... Larson, sadly, falls for the old propaganda, rendering this a rather old-fashioned book. He carelessly uses England and Britain interchangeably, never bothering to learn the subtle but important semantics of a diverse kingdom. He writes of Hitler’s bombing campaign against England, as if Welsh and Scottish cities were not also attacked ... It’s well to remember that England is not just a place but an idea, and that idea is alien and offensive to many outlanders ... Larson is a superb storyteller who cleverly weaves together the colossal and the mundane ... fascinating and entertaining, but it’s not remotely the real story ... reveals the dangers of an author parachuting into a dramatic moment of British history without a full understanding of the context ... The Battle of Britain was won in the factories, not in English country houses. We don’t really need another paean to Churchill, nor to that green and pleasant land. The real story is one of pork pies, warm beer and gritty working-class pluck.
Max Hastings
Positive The Times (UK) Military history is populated with too many narrow minds, writers who know everything about weapons, but understand little about war’s tragic consequences. Max Hastings, in contrast, can recite the military minutiae, but is also motivated to ask difficult questions about the victims of slaughter — those shot, blown apart, or in this case swept away by a wall of water ... War is ugly; war is sublime. Hastings belongs to a select group of scholars who recognises this terrible dichotomy and attempts neither to disregard nor resolve it. The beauty and the sorrow sit like perpetually feuding brothers, hopelessly irreconcilable.
Caroline Moorehead
Positive The Times (UK) Moorehead tries not to sensationalise this story; she recognises the importance of ordinary things. She appreciates that what made these women special was their resilience and fortitude. This is a sensitive and perceptive book founded on an appreciation of the role women play in any society, at any time. It is sober and serious, but still an easy read. Those looking for sensational tales of lascivious female warriors who fight and fornicate will be disappointed.
David Abulafia
Positive The Times (UK) ... seemingly insignificant \'facts\' are subjected to rigorous analysis in this mammoth book. Cast aside what you think you know about maritime history ... This is a very long book because there are so many significant accomplishments to recount ... Abulafia is more interested in people than ships; there is little detail about actual vessels ... it’s difficult to find a geographical area that’s neglected. He also finds room for ephemera such as pirates, cruise ships and, of course, herring. I was repeatedly struck by just how much Abulafia knows ... a very long book packed with minute detail...Is this one too long? Perhaps. Abulafia occasionally reminds me of my uncle who told tales interesting only to himself. For the most part, however, this is a fascinating book that never descends into arcane theorising ... The material is neatly ordered and presented in fluent, accessible prose. Seafaring tales are told without opulent or contrived drama; what instead makes this book special is the sheer breadth of its coverage ... This book should not, however, be approached lightly. The reader will form a relationship with it that will last for weeks or perhaps months; it’s not a book for those who fear commitment. The Boundless Sea is best read slowly. Put it on the bedside table, read a chapter at a time and feast on the magnificent bounty that Abulafia has to offer.
Tom Holland
Positive The Times (UK) This is an engaging book, even if its central thesis seems flawed. Holland strives to be \'as objective as possible\' — the virtues and the evils of Christian civilisation are exposed — but objectivity is not the same as neutrality. He’s not remotely neutral. He insists that the goodness of western man has Christianity at its core. That seems like cultural conceit ... Are these values Christian, or are they simply humane? Holland’s thesis implies that they were not as powerful before the advent of Christ nor as prevalent in places unaffected by his teachings ... I’m not so sure. The values described as Christian seem more like simple human nature ... The idea that charity and tolerance are evidence of Christian influence seems too ethnocentric ... While I don’t remotely accept Holland’s thesis, I have to commend the originality of this book, not to mention his brave ambition. Holland, I suppose, would think that very Christian of me.
William Dalrymple
Rave The Times (UK) ... gloriously opulent ... Dalrymple, who lives on a farm outside Delhi, clearly adores India and finds Clive’s bigotry and greed repulsive. But his love for the country does not cloud his judgment; this is not a superficial story of rapacious imperialists and their innocent victims ... There is, thankfully, little detail about the dull bureaucrats who ran the show ... India is a sumptuous place. Telling its story properly demands lush language, not to mention sensitivity towards the country’s passionate complexity. Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India. Yet from this book of beauty, a stark warning emerges...It’s an old story, but also a very modern one.
Jonathan Phillips
Rave The Times (UK) The book is, first, a conventional biography, superbly researched and enormously entertaining. That by itself would make this one of the outstanding books of the year. But Phillips also addresses that enduring adoration of Saladin by offering an analysis of cultural memory. The topic of memory is popular among historians at present, but their treatment of it is often so laden with arcane jargon and theory that it becomes incomprehensible. Phillips, in contrast, is clear, concise and illuminating, shedding light on animosities in the Middle East today.
Oliver Morton
Rave The Times (UK) This book...is testimony to the dangerous effects of staring at the moon ... This book is a moon primer, loaded with technical detail that is kindly processed for the layman. The moon, we learn, is dark like tarmac, with only slight variations on shades of grey. It reflects only 12 per cent of the sunlight that hits it, yet that’s enough to produce its enthralling luminosity. It smells like wet ashes ... The moon is an empty vessel into which we pour our hopes, dreams, ambitions and animosities ... I have read almost everything written about the lunar missions, yet I have never encountered a book that captures so perfectly and so lyrically the ridiculous power that the moon holds over human sensibility. This is a beautiful book about Luna — a \'Moon of many stories, Moon as might be and Moon as always was, Moon longed for and Moon happened upon\'. It exposes the magnificent desolation of the lunar quest, yet still captures the beguiling hold that the moon has over all of us. Well, most of us. Not me.
Svetlana Alexievich, Trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Rave The Times (UK) Last Witnesses is a painful book, but also a seductive one. These terrible stories demand to be read ... Random memories merge, forming a kaleidoscope of suffering ... Every page is packed with misery, violence and loss, but also with incredible resilience ... Childhood memories of war are elemental, stripped bare of political nuance and moral relativism. These subjects tell Alexievich precisely what happened. Their memories are often linked directly to the senses ... This book is a relentless torrent of unspeakable horror ... Despite all the horror, a message about human kindness somehow percolates to the surface. All these children survived because someone, usually a stranger, helped them at a crucial moment.
James Holland
Positive The Times This story has been told countless times ... Holland boasts that his book is something genuinely new, promising \'radically different conclusions\'. To be honest, I didn’t find anything particularly revelatory. However, this is still a superb account of the invasion that deserves immense praise. What makes it original is not its revelations, but its style. Holland tells this story \'at the tactical level\'; in other words, we feel what it was like to be a soldier on the beaches and in the bocage. To convey the human drama of Normandy requires great knowledge and sensitivity. Holland has both in spades.
Peter Moore
Rave The Times Moore gives us a wonderful biography of a ship while shedding light on the culture that shaped and surrounded it ... With exquisite prose, Moore captures the atmosphere as that small container of Britishness headed south ... n extraordinary book about an unlikely ship that defined an age. The book reminded me of one of those opulent 18th-century feasts enjoyed by King George — endless exotic dishes all delivered with exquisite style. Like the age it recounts, it is a book of energy, creativity and self-confidence.
Rick Atkinson
Positive The Times The author, a prizewinning American military historian, is never afraid to digress; he interrupts meticulous battle narratives with detours about the treatment of smallpox ... This is not a book for anyone in a hurry. Atkinson takes his time, but there’s delight in all that detail ... Atkinson is a superb researcher, but more importantly a sublime writer. On occasion I reread sentences simply to feast on their elegance ... In his previous life Atkinson was probably a Romantic poet.
Lewis Dartnell
Rave The Times ...[an] extraordinary book ... Dartnell understands geology, geography, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and history. That’s quite an achievement, but what makes him really special is the way he communicates the interconnectedness of these disciplines in a clear, logical and entertaining way. Origins is one of those rare books that dissolves mystery through the steady application of sublime lucidity. While reading it, I kept thinking: \'Oh, that makes sense\' ... Perhaps the most profound lesson of this superb book is that nothing is permanent, or predictable.
Jonathan Conlin
Positive The Times Mr Five Per Cent is a remarkable book, if only because Gulbenkian is not an easy subject. His single-mindedness — in the pursuit of art treasures, sex or money — renders him rather dull. Yet Conlin somehow constructs an engaging tale about this one-dimensional man. Every page is packed with figures, but there are also delightful details that provide welcome contrast to all those labyrinthine deals ... Gulbenkian fascinates not because he’s particularly interesting in and of himself, but rather because of the shady deals, broken friendships and family turmoil that littered his life. Gulbenkian, writes Conlin, became \'so fixated on protecting his fortune . . . that he seemed uninterested in the purposes for which it was being preserved\'. Other than that brief moment of reflection, Conlin refrains from criticism. Yet this book still provides an important moral lesson about the pathology of greed.
Tracy Borman
Mixed The Times (UK) Borman, the joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, claims that this \'biography from the outside in\' offers \'a new perspective\'. That’s not quite true, since others, including Hilary Mantel, have ploughed a similar furrow. Leaving aside its grandiose boasts, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him does offer some interesting insights into the king’s character.
Andrew Lambert
Mixed The Times (UK) Lambert is, without a doubt, the most insightful naval historian writing today. His range is immense, his understanding colossal, his sensitivity to his subject profound. This is, however, a very serious book which never attempts to be fun. It will remain a standard text at universities for decades to come, but readers who want to feast on fascinating tales of the sea will probably be disappointed. I found this book admirable, but not particularly enjoyable.
Kate Williams
Rave The Times UK I used to think that John Guy’s biography of Mary, My Heart Is My Own, could never be bettered. That’s probably still true, but this book nevertheless adds something significant to our understanding. Rival Queens is marketed as an account of the conflict between Elizabeth and Mary, but in truth is yet another biography. What makes it special is Williams’s understanding of how gender shaped Mary’s life. This is a feminist history, but not a clumsily theoretical one. Theory and sophisticated analysis never smother the pacey narrative.
Gordon Corera
Mixed The Times Pigeons are small. They played a small role in the war. They deserve recognition, but in a small way. [This] is a fascinating book, but it’s longer than it needs to be. Corera gets bogged down in the minutiae of interservice rivalries and occasionally pads the narrative with uninteresting detail. In the process, we lose sight of those quirky birds. They’re the real story ... Regardless of the intelligence they brought back, they were a boon to morale, a winged symbol of the determination to prevail.
Sarah Churchwell
Pan The Times It’s an impressive trawl of data, but what she does with that research worries me ... Patterns...always seem obvious when looking backwards, like footprints in the snow. Behold, America is a connect-the-dots history, or, to use another metaphor, the past viewed through the wrong end of a telescope ... the past should not be shoehorned into a convenient narrative. Had Churchwell stuck to the task of analyzing the past in its context, as historians are supposed to do, she might have produced a classic text on the American dream or America first.
Adam Zamoyski
Positive The Times (UK) The French are going to hate this book ... Napoleon has, for the most part, enjoyed an easy ride from historians, who are usually too intoxicated by his daring military victories to notice his serious flaws ... Zamoyski’s research is meticulous, his writing sublime, but the story suffers because of his admirable refusal to indulge in romantic fantasy. This is probably one of the truest biographies of Napoleon, but unfortunately the truth can sometimes be dull. That qualification aside, this book undoubtedly needed to be written.
Max Hastings
Rave The Times \"Hastings is perfectly suited to write about the Vietnam War. He witnessed its peculiar tragedies at first hand, arriving in Saigon in 1971 as a reporter at the age of 24. It’s fitting that a journalist should chronicle this war, since journalists played such a prominent part. The fact that Hastings is British is an additional advantage, since American writers are often blinded by their insularity ... This is a long book but not a bloated one; this war demands the detail that Hastings provides. His basic arguments are not particularly new, but the book itself is still original. What makes it so magnificent is its intimacy. Hastings possesses the journalist’s instinct for a good story, the tiny anecdote that exposes a big truth. Large tragedies are illustrated through very personal pain.\
Catherine Nixey
Rave The Times If you have wondered why so many classical statues are missing heads, arms, noses and genitalia, now you know ... The Darkening Age is a delightful book about destruction and despair. Nixey combines the authority of a serious academic with the expressive style of a good journalist. She’s not afraid to throw in the odd joke amid sombre tales of desecration. With considerable courage, she challenges the wisdom of history and manages to prevail. Comfortable assumptions about Christian progress come tumbling down.
Nancy Goldstone
Rave The Times It’s sometimes difficult to keep track of all those brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and cousins in castles scattered across Europe. That difficulty is compounded when the focus of attention is on a royal family with 13 children. But Goldstone is a master juggler. She tells a good story, always with a delightfully light touch. In the process, extraordinary women are given the attention they deserve. Goldstone brings them to prominence in a way that preserves their femininity while highlighting their strength. This is a feminist history without ever trying to be one. Women saved this family. Sisters did it by themselves.
Benjamin Carter Hett
Mixed The Times AJP Taylor once argued that Hitler’s rise was as inevitable and unsurprising as a river flowing into the sea. Hett rejects that notion, offering instead a perfect storm of economic misery, government incompetence, popular prejudice, a flawed democratic structure and a febrile public mood. This is an intelligent, well-informed explanation, but not original ... Hett’s stories promise much, but he is much more interested in sober analysis of politics at the highest levels and the sometimes tedious machinations of scheming politicians in the Weimar years. I missed the ordinary people, the banal multitude who made evil possible.
David Christian
Mixed The Times (UK) David Christian is not a big fan of micro-history. \'Specialisation,\' he argues, \'makes it difficult for any individual to stand back far enough to see humanity as a whole.\' ... Origin Story is first about physics, then chemistry, and finally biology. With 13.8 billion years covered in just over 300 pages, there’s little room for minor details such as politics, culture or morality. At the same time the book annoyed me...On one page he argues that \'more and more people are joining the new middle class as the numbers living in extreme poverty fall\'. In the next paragraph we learn that \'there are far more people living in extreme poverty than there were in the past\'. The contradictions baffle me.
Andrew Solomon
Positive The Washington Post [The] variety leads to an inconsistency of tone: Some are lighthearted, others somber. The short ones should be longer, the longer ones shorter. But does this matter? Probably not. This is an untidy book, but a great one. In truth, this is not really travel writing in the recognized form of the genre. The reader who expects a collection of quirky anecdotes about fascinating places will be disappointed. Far & Away is not just a voyage around the world; it’s also a voyage around Andrew Solomon ... intense purposefulness is what makes this book extraordinary. Travel is usually self-serving. Solomon’s is seldom that. Hope fuels his voyages ... This is a very noble book. It’s also a very depressing one.
Jay Winik
Pan The Washington Post Winik’s attempt to change history is ultimately unconvincing. The field of Holocaust studies is crowded with books much more worthy. In truth, 1944 left me rather annoyed. It’s poorly conceived and shoddily presented.