The Indiana Jones of the art world

Reads like a novel by John Le Carré

Forget the film The Monuments Men, in which George Clooney saves art from the hands of the Nazi’s. The way in which two massive bronze horses from Hitler’s personal art collection were retrieved – featuring Russian generals and Nazi descendants – is better than the movies

Brilliant, superbly original ... Underground Asia breaks new ground by showing how a collective consciousness emerged among revolutionaries on this shifting terrain ... Though many of the revolutionaries Harper evokes are now forgotten - or, for some Asian nations, too inconvenient to remember - their underground stories still echo through time.

Underground Asia is a monumental and magnificent study of anti-colonial revolutionaries who forged solidarities across the globe to mount a connected onslaught against the British, French, and Dutch empires. Written with verve and panache, this is riveting narrative history at its very best that would evoke the envy of the finest novelists.

Tim Harper's Underground Asia is a marvel of a book. I have never seen anything like it. Harper has the storyteller's gift. He makes connections across space and time and race and place that most people can't dream to emulate. No one understands the warp and weft of the absolute powder-keg explosion of the beginnings of nationalism in Asia writ large better than Tim Harper.

This thrilling, magisterial, superb biography, full of new material, tells the extraordinary swashbuckling, bloodspattered, inspirational life of Toussaint, brilliant leader of the Haitian slave revolt against France

Lustrous pearls ... scattered throughout Black Spartacus, turn this detailed, blow-by-blow account of Toussaint's military exploits into a dazzling, complicated narrative ... a breath-taking picture of the decade of Toussaint's dream

Sudhir Hazareesingh's engrossing new life is the story of an island as well as a man ... Hazareesingh brings to the task a voracious appetite for original sources and a discerning ear for those that have the ring of truth. He also has a gift for tracing those threads that reveal a previously unrecognised pattern in the fabric of a life.

With Black Spartacus, Sudhir Hazareesingh has produced the fourth - and best - biography of Toussaint Louverture since the bicentenary of Haitian independence ... The book deftly tackles the early stages of the slave uprising and gives one of the most convincing accounts yet of Toussaint's likely role in its opening moves.

This superb new history of Louverture and his legacy portrays Saint-Domingue as the most profitable slave colony the world had ever known ... with rare narrative verve, Hazareesingh conjures his subject's extraordinary life.

This is a balanced, yet sympathetic, biography which throws light on Toussaint's personality and acknowledges the importance of his political ideals ... Toussaint is now a global figure, a byword for Black empowerment, and as such he has become a hero for our times.

Hazareesingh presents a deeply researched, energetic, and comprehensively reenvisioned study of the extraordinary life and still-growing influence of Haiti's liberator and founding father.

a timely study of Toussaint Louverture, hero of Haiti's slave revolt

This timely biography digs deeper into archival material to reveal Louverture's uniquely modern views.

engaging ... a vivid portrait of a complex, captivating and sometimes contradictory leader.

Based on meticulous research in the French archives, Hazareesingh's scholarship deserves the highest praise.

Sudhir Hazareesingh's remarkable book is a sparkling example of the role history can play in society today and, in particular, the importance of shining a light on the often-overlooked experiences of the past.

Sudhir Hazareesingh's account of what he dubs the "epic life" of Toussaint Louverture provides a meticulous biography of his subject and, at the same time, a comprehensive new introduction to the Haitian Revolution ... Black Spartacus is compellingly written and presents its rich source material, both historiographic and archival, with a welcome lightness of touch. ... the definitive English-language life of Louverture

Sudhir Hazareesingh's stellar, deeply engrossing Black Spartacus still thrums with great potential for our contemporary moment. [Toussaint] shines incandescent in Hazareesingh's tour de force, which has brought an immense amount of new material into the general public domain. The distinguished author, who is a fellow at Oxford's Balliol College, previously specialized in French intellectual and cultural history, and admits in his acknowledgements that he had "never ventured into the history of French colonialism in the Caribbean." But there's also an intriguing biographical element- his roots in the Indian ocean island of Mauritius - that has worked rather serendipitously. As far as this reader is concerned, it's that perspective which has wound up yielding the most original and penetrating insights in Black Spartacus.

This book weaves all these threads into a compelling narrative. Reality trumps fiction on every page.

A weighty and considered investigation of events . . . an excellent book . . . providing a reliable, engaging, informative and, above all, sober narrative of events. The book will enable readers to make up their own minds - should they so desire - on the rights and wrongs of the matter. It is highly recommended

This minute-by-minute retelling tackles the big questions, but also - by drawing on the letters and diaries from the Dresden City Archive - never loosed sight of the experiences of people who witnessed, and suffered, the attach first-hand

It's a wonderful book, so absorbing, thoughtful and thought provoking, I didn't want it to end

The story of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945 is well known, but McKay's searing account is in a league of its own. His research is first-class, his writing elegant and emotive. He is brilliant at portraying the city's prewar beauty, grimly powerful on the horror of the firestorm, and moving and thoughtful about Dresden's rise from the ashes. By the end, I was itching to jump on a flight to Germany. That tells you about the skill and spirit of this terrific book