6,713 book reviews and counting...

"Good history books appear to offer a refuge from the present; more meretricious ones claim to teach it unique lessons; but the best provide their readers with simultaneous relief and resonance..."

"a deft account of a terrific double act..."

"This memoir of consorting with Princess Margaret and the royal family is remarkable...."

"her book is well worth reading..."

"A thought-provoking work of ‘moral atonement’ and ‘comparative redemption’..."

"The vividly written and well-researched The Fortress is a masterpiece ..."

"the disruptive and imaginative force of archaeology revealed..."

"The final part of this great biography tells how Mrs Thatcher’s political instincts deserted ..."

"A remarkable story of war, communism and espionage related with nuanced sympathy, but lacking reflection..."

"Darley’s personal exploration is the ideal antidote to platitudes and prejudice; it is the celebration that the Essex diaspora has been waiting for..."

"Muir’s book provides some useful yardsticks. ..."

"a deeply informed book that has, nearly 60 years later, powerful resonance...."

"At more than 1,000 pages, it offers nothing less than a history of humanity written from the perspective of the sea..."

"Damrosch sketches the lives adroitly,..."

"At the heart of Forth’s account of attitudes to fatness and beauty is a reassuringly consistent pragmatism...."

"(a) bracingly revisionist history..."

"The Map of Knowledge’s adjective-filled prose clearly takes pleasure in a recreation of the atmosphere..."

"This is a highly idiosyncratic experiment and much less Anglocentric than one might have expected..."

"For a slim volume, Corthorn’s book is a scholarly one. Unfortunately, Corthorn never quite escapes the archives in which he has laboured...."

"It’s a depressing story, told in discreet, unsensational prose...."

"[Marozzi's] writing style is lively, limpid and graceful and it enables him to turn a vast amount of material into a continuously readable narrative..."

"He lets people speak for themselves... once you fall into the rhythm of the words there is much to enjoy...."

"action-packed, densely plotted read..."

"This will make for comprehensive introductory reading for those new to the subject...."

" It is vivid, well balanced and often sympathetic. ..."

"There isn’t a lot of explanation of who people are. You either know their names and a bit of their biographies already or you don’t. The result is one of those dip-in, dip-out kind of books...."