Staggeringly useful... combines solid information with tantalising appetisers.

A gem of a book ... The distillation of years of research by the author, who must be applauded also for the brevity ... A must have reference book.

An enthralling new book about possibly the most audacious art theft ever pulled off

This has all the twists, turns and infinite suspense of a detective novel

Reads like a superior detective novel . . . a fast-paced race against time to find the Mona Lisa and solve the greatest mystery ever to hit the art world

This is history at its best - the world's greatest naval disaster brought to vivid life by a rare combination of personal experience and rigorous scholarship.

Terrific ... a fascinating adventure tale packed with insights into a maritime empire about which most Westerners know almost nothing.

Through brilliant and painstaking research Delgado has brought Khubilai Khan's lost fleet to the surface, showing for the first time the true nature of the doomed adventure.

Delgado has long been my favourite author on maritime history

His conclusions neatly balance the equally pertinent questions of why Communist systems collapse, and why they lasted so long

One of Britain's leading experts on communism provides a grimly humorous and richly anecdotal study

Scholarly, well-paced and critical...few can match him for insider knowledge

Balanced, insightful, illuminated by intriguing detail and flashes of humour, this worldwide panorama is a miracle of compression

This superb book gives the history of the ideology and the reasons for its decline

It reads like Sovietology rendered by John le Carré

The book is well written with flashes of mordant humour and sufficient records of personal foibles and institutional stupidity to keep the reader going through some dreadful moments of human history