This diary of death and destruction radiates not just personality, but that elusive, lyrical honesty the existentialists used to call 'authenticity'.

Much more than just an 'historical documentary'. It has a universal applicability. Hard not to weep as one reads; impossible - because she writes with such lucidity - not to feel ourselves actually present in these terrible scenes... This small book is a major work - a worthy memorial to a great woman, and a truly horrible period of Russian history

An account of the 900-day siege of Leningrad by a member of the Russian literary generation of Akhmatova, Pasternak and Mandelstam. Ginzburg writes with splendid imaginative particularity--never tragically, though--about how bombs and starvation work. And she writes--how could someone of her heritage and generation not write?--about the nobility of the human spirit so as to make it as tangible as cardboard shoes

Tells more of the experience of life in twentieth-century Russia than many multi-volume novels

A startling and moving description of what it's like to slowly starve to death.

Her journal, though acutely and poetically observed, is not mainly a record of the horrors themselves, but more of a rumination on their psychological and moral implications. Evoking the daily details of the siege, Ginzburg captures them and transforms them

An important corrective to the black-and-white portrait of the period that still prevails

A stimulating exercise in muscular revisionism ... Offers a fresh and provocative view of our much-loved and much-misunderstood "finest hour"

Accessibly written and deserves a wide audience. Above all, Edgerton demonstrates that the war is a subject we haven't yet heard nearly enough about. Britain's War Machine is a considerable achievement

Edgerton has excelled himself with this highly revisionist account of Britain's national performance during the Second World War ... an unusually provocative book

Edgerton has written what could prove to be one of the most influential books on the history of the Second World War ... majestic ... [he] has successfully shown us that we still have a lot to learn about the conflict ... it will become the required reading for all students wishing to study the Second World War

An astounding work of myth-busting ... Inspiring and unsettling in equal measure

Majestic ... a wonderful read. It has probably popped more myths than any other book on the war in recent years

Brilliant and iconoclastic ... debunks the myth that Britain was militarily and economically weak and intellectually parochial during the 1930s and 1940s

Truly eye-opening ... Edgerton's carefully researched book will fundamentally change the way you think about World War II

Riveting ... a wonderfully rich book ... thoroughly stimulating

A major new assessment of Britain's war effort from 1939 to 1945. Never again will some of the lazy assessments of how Britain performed over these years ... be acceptable. That's why this is such an important book

Innovative and most important

Compelling and engaging ... an excellent read

Edgerton's well-researched volume bursts with data that reveal Britain's true strength even when supposed to be in critical condition

Britain's War Machine offers the boldest revisionist argument that seeks to overturn some of our most treasured assumptions about Britain's role in the war ... Edgerton [is] an economic historian with an army of marshalled facts and figures at his fingertips ... This is truly an eye-opening book that explodes the masochistic myth of poor little Britain, revealing the island as a proud power with the resources needed to fight and win a world war

Masterful Britain's War Machine promotes the notion that the United Kingdom of the Forties was a superpower, with access to millions of men across the globe, and forming the heart of a global production network