Traversing a scarred land that has endured everything and forgotten nothing, historian Ronald Fraser records the memories of survivors in this remarkable oral history... No other volume on the Spanish Civil War can surpass the power of this one.

Fascinating and brilliantly unorthodox.

Fraser has stunningly captured the feel of the Spanish Civil War. It is as close to the truth as we'll ever get.

Moving and original...splendid and evocative.

Just occasionally a great and important historical work appears that not only affects our understanding of the events it describes and analyses, but also significantly alters our attitude towards the historical process itself... A magnificent, monumental book, that is quite the most valuable addition to the vast library of books on the 1930s that has been published in the last decade.

In this jaunty history Nigel Jones seeks to conjure the many characters that have lived, been imprisoned and perished within its walls ... Jones weaves yarns from the Tower's past into the familiar tapestry of English history. His prose is dashing.

Painstakingly researched

Grippingly narrated… Has the feel of a definitive work

Richly colourful and wittily observed

Absorbing

A glorious read!

Highly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim reactions is particularly topical

Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia

Sophisticated ... not so much polemic as cri de coeur, motivated by Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards its own destruction

Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ... The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated ... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us read the past in a fresh light

[Full of] complexity and nuance

Subtle, erudite and entertaining

Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia

A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious