'Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and irradiated by a wry sense of humour...[this] biography of the bomb is absolutely gripping...Our sensibilities on this score have gone to sleep: this outstanding book ought to wake them up again with a very loud bang.'

'The gripping story of the invention and building of the bomb, spiced with wartime strategic manoeuvring, scientific intrigues and espionage, has never been better told.'

'A timely account of mankind's most awful invention, wryly wrapped as a biography...A clever cocktail of reportage, analysis and anecdote from the physics of the bomb's conception to the B-movies it inspired.'

'I have read many books about different aspects of this enormous subject, but none that brings the diverse pieces together so well, in such an absorbing and truly masterful way.'

A page-turning biography of mankind's most terrifying creation. This disturbs, amuses, enlightens and, most importantly, makes you think twice

Parker's descriptions of West Indian life are not only beautifully crafted but full of surprises. What's more, his accounts of tropical combat are utterly compelling. As a portrait of the heat, horror and vanity of that time, The Sugar Barons is surely without equal

Parker's epic story, from the 19th century to the present day, is awesome

An epic tale of human folly and endeavour, beautifully told and researched

Alternately excoriating and scintillating, Parker's account blends an analysis of how slavery deformed Britain's early empire with narratives worthy of Conrad. It is a tale peopled by terrifying grotesques: captains of industry whose initiative, swagger and fortitude were more than matched by the monstrous scale of their crimes.

Fabulously researched, the diary entries, letters and papers reveal a staggering level of corruption and cruelty . . . He constructs, piece by piece, what amounts to a compelling prosecution of the slavery and Imperial greed that left a shocking legacy in the region

Racy, well-researched history . . . The Sugar Barons provides eloquent testimony to the mercantile greed of a few and manifest misery endured by millions in the pursuit of sweetness

Required reading for anyone interested in history ... timely and thrillingly told

Superb...Cleopatra led an epic life, and Schiff captures its sweep and scope in a vigorous narrative aimed at the general reader yet firmly anchored in modern scholarship. The author's greatest strengths remain the lucid intelligence and subtle analysis of personality...Schiff reanimates [Cleopatra] as a living, breathing woman: utterly extraordinary, to be sure, but recognizably human.

Stacy Schiff draws a portrait worthy of her subject's own wit and learning...Ms. Schiff manages to tell Cleopatra's story with a balance of the tragic and the hilarious...[and] does a rare thing: She gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist.

Captivating...Ms. Schiff strips away the accretions of myth that have built up around the Egyptian queen and plucks off the imaginative embroiderings of Shakespeare, Shaw and Elizabeth Taylor. In doing so, she gives us a cinematic portrait of a historical figure far more complex and compelling than any fictional creation, and a wide, panning, panoramic picture of her world....Writing with verve and style and wit, Ms. Schiff recreates Cleopatra's lavish courting of Antony (including one dinner in which there was a knee-deep expanse of roses and some of the attendees received not gift baskets but furniture and horses decked out in silver-plated trappings) and his even more extravagant offerings to her (including the library of Pergamum and a host of territories which gave her dominion over Cyprus, portions of Crete and all but two cities of the thriving Phoenician coast). For that matter, Ms. Schiff even manages to make us see afresh famous scenes like Antony's painful death after his defeat at the hands of Octavian, and Cleopatra's subsequent suicide.

A swift, sympathetic life of one of history's most maligned and legendary women.