Paxman's book is everyhing that royalty is not allowed to be - witty, stylish, intelligent, pugnacious and political.

On Royalty is an absorbing, well-researched book, part serious enquiry, part rollicking anecdote.

Action-packed and entertaining.

Brave, humane and honest

This is a book you are bound to enjoy. The set pieces - the naval review of June 1897, the Jameson Raid, The Kaiser's visit to Windsor, Winston Churchill visiting the fleet, "the spring of the panther" - are dramatically recreated. The pen portraits of the political and naval establishments of Wilhelmine Germany and Victorian and Edwardian Britain are brilliantly evoked with a sharp eye for the memorable detail...Massie keeps his complex story under tight control...Monographers like myself can only envy the sheer sweep of Dreadnought and the author's rich palette of colours so deftly applied. Like Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August this is narrative history at its very best. Financial Times

The pleasure of this book for me, in addition to such stimulating details, is that the Holy Roman Empire on the cusp of the 17th century is terra incognita, to be approached with a fresh eye... Rudoph's tolerance deserves a wider audience in our fractious age

A very readable history... Marshall rightly argues, as an enabler of scientific, artistic and mystical insight, Rudolf has no peer

It was a magical moment in the history of Western civilization, when anything was possible. Mr Marshall brings it all wonderfully to life

An entertaining description of life at the heart of a Europe stained by the clash of new and old ideas... an enjoyable description of what was an extraordinary epoch

An insightful and perceptive record of a city that revolutionised culture and science

Fascinating