This brilliant book by the leading historian of our times about a subject of great significance will delight professional historians and entrance the reading public. Rough Crossings succeeds in all respects. It is a 'tour de force' and a landmark in historical scholarship

Schama's gift for plunging us into the very centre of the action, whether in Charleston, London or on the African coast, makes reading an exhilarating experience

Brilliant and deeply moving

Schama has a remarkable ability to stare into the anonymous faces in the crowd and to pluck them from historical obscurity. Rough Crossings gives voice to people who have, until now, remained mere names on duty lists

One only has to dip into Rough Crossings to appreciate the command of detail that lies behind his apparently effortless ability to come up with the right quotation or description

I’ve never read a history book that is as insightful and at the same time as funny as this one.

This is a blockbuster of a book. Kurt Andersen is a dazzling writer and a perceptive student of the many layers of American life. Take a deep breath and dive in.

Riveting…hugely entertaining.

Charged with enough anger and wit to become necessary reading.

With the acuity of Joan Didion and the controlled hilarity of Ian Frazier, Mark Binelli investigates the portents and absurdities of America’s most infamous urban calamity. Exhilarating in scope, irresistible for its intricate, scrupulous portraiture, [The Last Days of Detroit] is the masterful performance of one of our generation’s most humane and brilliant writers

Let’s face it. Detroit City is not the place to be. But if you care about America you have to see it, to walk its desolate streets, to talk to the people who make it their home, to hear what it means to live on the wrong side of the post-industrial divide. And you’re not going to find a smarter, tougher, more entertaining guide than Mark Binelli

Mark Binelli has succeeded in synthesizing the tragedy and absurdity that Detroiters face each and every day in America’s fastest shrinking city. Yes, things are dire in Motor City, but Binelli refuses to perform an autopsy on a place that still radiates rage, pride, hustle, and hope. Detroit, he discovers, is very much alive

Before turning the buffalo (or the artists) loose on the haunted prairie that was once Detroit, we should ponder why a great American metropolis was allowed to die. Mark Binelli, Motor City native returned, provides a picaresque but unflinchingly honest look at the crime scene. Like Richard Pryor, he has the rare talent to make you laugh and cry at the same time

[The Last Days of Detroit] is a brilliant kaleidoscope of everything that is great, broken, inspiring, heart-breaking, and ultimately remarkable about Detroit. Mark Binelli has turned the story of the city, and by extension America, into a glorious, unforgettable work of art

At once hilarious and sharp, sweeping and intimate, [The Last Days of Detroit] is an oddly delighted warning from the recent future. With the tender scrutiny of a returning exile, Mark Binelli has written a non-fiction novel about our American experiment, and it’s the most entertaining and persuasive book about this country I’ve read in a very long time

Mark Binelli is a first-rate reporter, gifted with the ability to get almost anybody to open up. [The Last Days of Detroit] is searching, wide-angle, honest, deeply moving, and unshakably dark. It is a vivid slice of our time and implies a disquieting prophecy of the future

An encounter with a longstanding black resident reveals underlying tensions “Detroit isn't some kind of abstract art project." Binelli's achievement is to make that vividly apparent

Mark Binelli’s The Last Days of Detroit is a magnificent anthem to one of America’s most significant cities. He takes you on a tour into the dark heart of this once vibrant city, the home of the Ford car. This is a beautiful prose poem to a fascinating city and to post-industrial America

Succeeds in bringing out angles on Detroit that at least this casual observer hadn’t heard before

Both a history and a thoughtful travelogue… British readers might wonder what Detroit has to do with them, but the collapse of manufacturing, its yawning unemployed, the tension generated by a usually white liberal class who seize on gentrification possibilities (and the desire to turn dereliction into abstract art) are universal modern concerns

Mark Binelli’s surprisingly joyful book

A remarkable trawl through the sorry and tragic recent history of a city that was once heralded as the future of the United States

Binellis shows us that a brighter economic future may be possible even in the most benighted of cities

The value of this book lies not just in its compelling story, but in its lessons for all the West

Now the city and above all its people have been brilliantly captured

[A] wry, inquisitive survey of Detroit's troubled past and present... Surprisingly joyful

This journalistic account tells an enthralling, balanced story