Both as a work of history and as an upmarket version of Who Do You Think You Are? this book is a great success

A fascinating blend of biography and history, which poignantly evokes the pain and loss attendant on exile, in both wartime and peace.

In Finding Poland, about his grandmother's deportation from Poland, he has a cracking story which he tells with compassion, verve, and the professional historian's restraint and accuracy

Moving book...Scholarly without being oppressive, Kelly's book reminds us how millions of people in the last century were uprooted by war and ideology, their expectations blown to the winds, their horizons utterly altered.

Excellent book... his research is meticulous

Lively and well-researched

Here Shephard skilfully weaves the story into that of the other armies....and how (it) is richly told

Shephard does not seek to draw pat lessons or modern conclusions from any of this. He is content to tell us what happened next, in detail, and often vividly...a riveting and often entirely fresh story, shrewdly assembled, very well told.

Ben Shephard's account of his demanding and important subject is a triumph, His has unearthed new and moving testimony by former DPs and has burrowed into official and personal papers without ever letting his deep scholarship get in the way of the riveting story he has to tell...With a sureness of touch he interweaves the personal stories of those who were involved in the allied relief effort at all levels ...For anyone who is curious about the coalition of interests and beliefs which slide across this particularly American see-saw, reading Shepherd's brilliant book is a must

Ben Shephard's impressively readable account is replete with detailed personal testimony

Ben Shephard's impressively readable account is replete with detailed personal testimony. It is a reminder not only of the real achievements of relief workers in the 1940s, but also of the continuing problem of refugees across the globe, many of whom - as in Iraq - have suffered the consequences of far less satisfactory programmes of relief and reconstruction.

Deeply impressive... Well researched, well-written and often moving

There's a pounding quietness to Moorhouse's description of life in Berlin

A well-researched, fluently-written and utterly absorbing account of what life (and, so very often) death was like for ordinary Germans in the capital of Hitler's Reich during the Second World War. The Berliners' capacity for suffering, for sacrifice, for self-delusion, but also astonishingly for love - and even on occasion humour - is superbly evoked by Moorhouse's cornucopia of new information

Berlin at War is a well-researched and beautifully composed account, vividly recreating those years of Nazi arrogance, oppression, and corruption, that ended in such terrible destruction and civilian suffering

Wonderful ... an amazing panoramic view ... I've rarely read anything like it

A masterful account of lost and stolen lives

Awesome ... one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I defy anyone to read it without weeping at its human suffering, cruelty and courage ... in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial

Sheds new light on history that we thought we knew... meticulously detailed and very readable

The miracle is that there isn’t a dull page. As it moves towards its deadly climax, the story hangs together as tightly as a thriller. Into the Silence is as monumental as the mountain that soars above it; small wonder that it won the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction … Once you start wandering the snowy passes with Mallory and the lads, you won’t want to come down again. There can be no better way, surely, to spend a week in winter

He sees the climbers as haunted dreamers, harrowed by their desperate experiences in the First World War, living amid romantic dreams of Imperial grandeur and the elemental, sublime grandeur of the mountain

This is the awesomely researched story of Mallory, Irvine and the early Everest expeditions. It puts their efforts and motivations into the context of Empire and the first world war in a way I don’t think previous books have ever managed

A vivid depiction of a monumental story…Wade Davis’ passion for the book shines through and I can only hope that his next book doesn’t take as long to write as I will certainly be reading it