Magnificent, authoritative and deeply-researched... a supreme work of scholarship.

Clark has achieved the impossible: a synoptic history of a subject which defies synopsis... this is history on an epic scale... a masterpiece and one of the best history books you will read this decade.

Refreshingly original... it's fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive. Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows.. Clark's prose is beautiful but also crystal clear

Magnificent... does a remarkable job weaving together the myriad strands that make up the narrative, allowing us to see the events in granular detail and with synoptic, Europe-wide vision.

Full of characters, colour and story, but also makes the arresting case that the revolutions ... changed Europe and the world in ways felt to this day... the history teacher you wished you'd had.

A marvel of research and analysis. No corner of Europe, from the Ukrainian borderlands to the Greek islands, escapes his gaze.. a titanic monument to historical scholarship.

Exhilarating, heroic, horrifying and tragic, the events of the mid-19th century in Europe invite a good retelling ... Christopher Clark's new book is, arguably, the best to date ... deeply researched, rich, engaging and though-provoking. There is now no better place to turn for readers who want to immerse themselves in this period and to reflect on how it resonates today.

Thrills with unexpected energy ... this is narrative history in the grand style ... superb.

An engrossing dissection of a revolutionary year in European society.

Scintillating ... [a] magnificent chronicle of the events leading up to and beyond 1848 ... he tackles the complexity by giving sufficient space to the often thrilling stories of every uprising.

Magnificent ... Sophisticated analysis and beautiful prose ... The author vividly depicts a Europe grasping toward the future.

Combines over-arching analysis and explanation with a ground-level reporter’s skill at narrating events and capturing character with vividness and compassion … a historian working at the height of his powers.

Here is that rare thing: a little-known story of the Great War, featuring a pioneering surgeon every bit as daring as the soldiers he saved. Beautifully written, illuminating, and bursting with fascinating detail, The Facemaker is a groundbreaking work that deserves its own genre: medical noir. You won't be able to put it down

I was an admirer of Fitzharris's award-winning first book, The Butchering Art, about Joseph Lister. This is her absorbing account of another surgeon: Harold Gillies, who established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction

Equal parts devastating and inspiring. The horrors of war are laid bare here, but the stories of each of the soldiers, doctors, nurses, and artists are incredibly poignant and fascinating. I couldn't put it down

An extraordinary story about a remarkable man whose work, determination and skill changed countless lives

Graphic yet inspiring, engaging... [Fitzharris] delivers a consistently vivid account... An excellent biography of a genuine miracle worker

Wonderful... It was written with a clarity that I loved - although the book is packed with fascinating information, it read as easily as a novel... It is really inspiring and beautifully written

A fascinating portrait of pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies and the soldiers whose faces he rebuilt during WWI... Meticulously researched and compulsively readable, this exceptional history showcases how compassion and innovation can help mitigate the terrible wounds of war

Sometimes, you just know. From the moment I read The Facemaker's excellent prologue, I knew I had a book on my hands... Fitzharris is a gifted storyteller and delights in just about the right amount of detail

Informative... A powerful portrait of a gifted man

The Facemaker conveys the emotional, physical and psychical effects of having an injured and altered face, directly from those who had to deal with them... Powerful

In The Facemaker, Fitzharris rescues another vital yet largely forgotten figure from history. Blending scrupulous research with a novelist's eye, the author charts Gillies's extraordinary contribution to reconstructive surgery and weaves in touching accounts of the soldiers he treated. Stark and occasionally unsettling, the book reveals Gillies as both a craftsman and an artist, and underlines how by restoring the faces of the maimed Gillies was also restoring their lives and identities

Vividly thrilling

Full of breath-taking events at the cross-roads of empires at a moment in history when notions such as Europe, Asia, Christianity and Islam were infinitely more fluid and permeable than they are today

Original... de Bellaigue... offers a vivid presentation of events, re-imagined as scenes and episodes... a different, literary kind [of history]

De Bellaigue writes with impecable scholarship, piecing together contemporary accounts to create a thrilling narrative

De Bellaigue is an expert stylist, sensitive to rhythm and vocabulary, and passionate in his pursuit of the fugitive detail that gives meaning to a whole episode

An exhilarating read

An engrossing book... This is history turned into drama and poetry, awesomely spectacular yet also intensely intimate

The world of Suleyman the Magnificent...is brought to life in this history

A masterpiece

Jessie Child's The Siege of Loyalty House turns an English Civil War stand-off into a fable of murderous polarisation: gripping, timely history

The Siege of Loyalty House ... tingles with a discerning historical imagination

[A] thrilling tale of war

[A] gripping tale of a royalist house standing its grown against the Roundheads ... Atmospheric, unflinching, and at times extraordinarily witty

[A] poignant book... the story is timeless

Compelling

Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, [The Siege of Loyalty House] tells the story of the epic two-year siege of Basing House, a royalist mansion finally captured by Oliver Cromwell in 1645.

When you are as good a writer as Jessie Childs, and as assuredly immersed in the archives, the pages zing with the technicolour of celluloid. ... [A] masterpiece.

Childs writes an engrossing, spellbinding narrative while laying out a clear and comprehendible history

The broad subject of this poignant book is what happens to people during civil war: how quickly and imperceptibly order becomes chaos and decency yields to cruelty. In other words, how close to inhumanity humanity always is. The focus is on an episode in the English civil war, but the story is timeless

A gripping account of the agony at Basing, The Siege of Loyalty House is also a potted social history of the civil wars and how they started. Jessie Childs, [is] a gifted storyteller