[Cannadine's] great strength is his lucid and crushing treatment of false prophets ... his case is urgent, as the news demonstrates every day ... Cannadine is frank in acknowledging that his is not the last word ... but he has uttered the first word and deserves exhaustive discussion. His plea is of enormous value. It should be heard in every think tank, madrassa, history workshop and sixth form and should guide the utterances of statesmen

Cannadine marshals modern scholarship, a sure historical sweep, and a confident polemic ... Quite rightly, Cannadine denounces the collective, warring identities conjured up by [neoconservative scholars] and again highlights a broader history of cultural exchange ... this collection winningly combines history, politics, and contemporary culture in a refreshingly optimistic manner

An ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of the notion of human solidarity. It explores the concept by seeking to analyse what divides us, neatly sidestepping the need to list what we have in common ... an interesting and informative read

[An] impassioned plea ... The Undivided Past should earn applause ... The next time some tub-thumping loudmouth proclaims the timeless truth of a binary divide - between, say, 'Britain' and 'Europe' - throw this book at them

Highly intelligent, stimulating, occasionally provocative and enormous fun to read ... The Undivided Past is a cry for tolerance ... It is a noble message and one that historians would do well to heed

Elegantly written and stimulating ... [Cannadine] goes much further than most academic historians in challenging the centrality of tensions based on nation, class, ethnicity and gender

Cannadine urges us to see through [prejudices] and past them, to get away from the old chestnuts of class, race, gender and the rest, and to concentrate on exploring what brings us together

Each chapter of Cannadine's book ... displays the incisive and original argument for which he is renowned ... Cannadine is surely right to insist on a recovery of the unchronicled swathes of human history dominated by cooperation and peace, rather than wars of race, religion or nationalism ... [The Undivided Past displays] his characteristic style and ingenuity

Cannadine has produced a set of lively and informative essays that are leavened ... by a dry wit

Draws on a vast range of private letters and diaries

Lucid, passionate, urgent

This is first class history and in a year swamped with First World War centenary books, it’s the one you should read first

A compelling and fascinating read...a shadowy assassin brought to life by an writer who gets to grips with a century of Balkan intrigue

A marvellously absorbing book... A triumph of research, it will appeal to the layman and historian alike

Extremely well written, taut and evocative... Despite its complex subject, Butcher makes this an easy and engaging read with his breezy style and fascinating encounters

Illuminating... Butcher achieves something remarkable with Princip. He promotes him quite plausibly from mad man to everyman; a warning to the future whom the future foolishly forgot

Arguably the most important story of the war

As a travel writer, Butcher takes some beating. He packs balls as well as ballpoints

A triumph of storytelling... [A] highly original gem of a book

Informative and powerful

A page-turning exploration of how the forgotten past continues to inform the present... Important, and relevant

[Princip’s] story as Butcher now tells it has a resonance far beyond the Balkans

Elegant, horrifying and enlightening… A book which is not only a good piece of detective work, it is the finest contribution so far this year to the rapidly expanding literature on the Great War

Tim Butcher has produced the most imaginative and singular book on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War to date. It is a lot more than a study of Princip… It is a piece of expeditionary journalism, an investigation in time, place and spirit, of the highest order

A revealing insight into the mind and journey of the boy who escaped the narrow confines of his village, and whose political aspirations for his native country had such far-reaching effects on the world

Utterly absorbing… If journalism is the first draft of history, Butcher marries both disciplines with boldness and originality – as well as sympathy for his shadowy subject

Insightful and entertaining, this blows the cobwebs off the history of that day

Positive proof that fact can be as gripping as fiction…rich and timely… Amongst so many books published around the anniversary of the First World War, this one stands out

A fascinating investigation… An absorbing read

Despite its serious subject matter, the book is a rollicking read, full of amusing details and sarcastic humour

A brilliant and haunting journey through the Balkans

In the centenary year of the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, what better read than Tim Butcher’s The Trigger

[A] fascinating and lively history

Very complex – but you will grasp it

A fascination exploration

Highly readable but profoundly researched, The Trigger represents a bold exception to the deluge of First World War books devoted to mud, blood and poetry

a fascinating original portrait of a man and his country