Vivid and compelling

It is hard to see how Keegan's masterful and thought-provoking book could be beaten

In its range and sweep, this book is difficult to better and promises to become the definitive account of the conflict

One of our finest military historians, Keegan brings a shrewd and discerning eye to [the] conflict... compelling

The best military historian of our day

As a military historian John Keegan has the qualities of the best commanders

Keegan's historical command is dazzling

John Keegan brings his subject alive and is particularly good on how unreliably nasty (yes, nasty is surely the word) war can be, and what it does to the men whose job is to take part in it

Keegan tells the story of war between the industrial North and the agricultural South, and that's very good. But what I loved most, and what Keegan is always superb at, is analysis

You would be hard pressed to find a better written one-volume history of this epic struggle

Illuminating

A captivating narrative, huge in scope

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

So did they reach the summit? It's anybody's guess. But all Wade Davis' experts in this fascinating book, shake their heads

Utterly fascinating, and grippingly well-written. With extraordinary skill Wade Davis manages to weave together such disparate strands as Queen Victoria's Indian Raj, the 'Great Game' of intrigue against Russia, the horrors of the Somme, and Britain's obsession to conquer the world's highest peak

Davis’ descriptions of the trenches – the bodies, the smell, the madness – are some of the best I’ve ever read

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