Astute, opinionated and unsentimental, Harris makes a robust and entertaining guide to the party's history.

Robin Harris combines a career of working for the party with the qualifications of a historian. He also writes beautifully, with a perilous sharpness. His account is highly entertaining.

A marvel of concision, lucidity and scholarship, with penetrating things to say about Peel, Disraeli, Churchill and the rest. His book can be read for pleasure as well as instruction.

Highly readable, with sparkling portraits of the leading figures, and the author's acerbic observations and pithy judgments, even when one does not agree with them, are always thought-provoking and sometimes pointed enough to make one laugh out loud...this is a good book. I am glad that it was written. And I'm glad that I read it.

My expectations for this book were high; but Dr. Harris has exceeded them. This book is genuine history written with real authority...finely written and highly readable, with an undercurrent of dry wit running through its narrative.

Harris writes well and with considerable force.

Incisive and entertaining.

So enjoyable to read

This well-researched, highly readable and occasionally highly witty account should become the new standard history of the Tory Party, and required reading for all MPs.

Lively and trenchant

White is London’s foremost historian

In a hectic history, teeming with life at all levels, from West End to East End, from music hall to munitions factories, from society balls to sweatshops, the voices of wounded soldiers, dazed refugees, liberated women and sharp-witted Londoners sing and weep throughout this constantly surprising story

A convincing and exhaustive account of what Londoners experienced from 1914 to 1918

A rich social history… White is as adept with individual characters as he is with the statistics of munitions production

Few people have a better grasp of the history of London than Professor Jerry White

Fresh, interesting… Vivid and often moving

White writes with the fluency of a novelist, and this book can be hugely recommended

A first-rate social history

As ever with Jerry White, the broader themes are peppered with wonderful, throwaway trivia, while the main thrust is both meticulously researched and highly readable

White’s book is a true piece of art

A sparkling and fascinating account

Well-paced narrative...of great relevance today, when such conflicts seem (but only seem) to have disappeared.

Immensely compelling

Meticulously researched

The true strength of this meticulously researched book is the placing of the revelations into the context of a compelling human drama

Engrossing

[An] outstanding treasure of literature

Impeccably researched, and moving, this book breaks new ground