The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words

A particularly vivid and personal narrative

Pioneering and hauntingly eloquent

Vivid . . . military historian James Holland conjures the heroism and horror of this gallant stand by a motley force of doctors, clerks and other base troops against highly trained Japanese infantry.

A gripping account of one of the war’s lesser-known episodes

Holland is excellent at conjuring up the sights, sounds and smells of combat in the Arakan’s inhospitable terrain . . . Too many histories of the Second World War revisit the same old battles: Dunkirk, El Alamein, D-day and Arnhem. It is refreshing, therefore, to be reminded of one of the lesser known yet still highly significant engagements. Burma ’44 is a brilliant exploration of how and why the British turned the tide in the East

This book not only reveals previously unknown facts, it also makes one proud of the British achievement, both by the ‘clerks and orderlies; and by senior commanders

A smashing battle history . . . The fear and tension of jungle combat are tangible in this pacey narrative of how British and Indian troops won their first decisive victory over the Japanese

Rich in detail and drama. Enthralling

If there's one thing that sets Beevor apart from other historians - beyond his gifts as a storyteller - it's that he is not afraid to look at the most uncomfortable, even frightening subjects, but does so in a way that doesn't threaten the reader. It's like having Virgil there to lead you through the underworld: he doesn't leave you stranded amid the horror but leads you back again, a wiser person for having undergone the journey

An indispensable book. It is a great strength of Beevor's writing that he takes time to explain how small pieces of knowledge - the kind of thing passed on by battle-hardened soldiers themselves - could make the difference between survival and a futile death

Beevor weaves a brilliant narrative out of all this drama. As in his previous books, his gifts are strongest in focusing on telling details from different perspectives . . . A vital historical insight

A portrait of war . . . startling in its detail. Beevor has the art of preserving the individual perspective on the battlefield while placing it among the perspectives of platoon, regiment, division, commanders, politicians and civilians. This book clarifies, without simplifying, the human experiences and political stakes of the battle for the Ardennes Forest, bringing realism to the battlefield and coherence to the larger history of the war

A sweeping, sobering read, written with all the confidence and aplomb that Beevor fans would expect. Beevor is as good on the rows behind the front lines as he is on the battles themselves

Formidable . . . Beevor is a field marshal of facts. Under his brisk control the story of Hitler's final gamble is another example of the kind of action-packed, densely informed narrative that has proved such a formidable model

Like Beevor's magisterial account of the Second World War, Ardennes 1944 benefits from the same depth of field, seamlessly shifting its point to focus from the macro level to the micro and back again

Wonderfully compelling. The Ardennes was a short, brutal and ultimately futile battle - the last spasm of a dying regime - and no one has recounted it better than Beevor. His gripping, beautifully written narrative moves seamlessly from the generals' command posts to the privates in their snow-covered foxholes, and confirms him as the finest chronicler of war in the business. His particular genius is for ferreting out those telling details that paint a picture

First-rank history. Beevor's triumph is to add layers to a book that is gently but precisely judgmental, acute on character and gaudy and grisly in detail. With his sure hand on detail and his strong opinion on how and why the German offensive was prosecuted and why it failed . . . Beevor shows how plans freeze on icy roads, how individual acts of bravery have significant effects, how generals can be wrong but proved right by the vagaries of weather, fortune or a providence that is unfathomable

Nicholas Stargardt spotlights the surprising twists and turns in the popular embrace of both the war and Nazi racial extremism. He explains—as few have—why the German people fought to the finish, whereas even the supposedly fanatical Japanese surrendered before an invasion of the homeland

Ambitious and absorbing new book.

[A] revelatory book.

I enjoyed this book immensely…This book fills a vast gap in our knowledge of history and I am glad to have read it.

This is a compelling book…It’s a story of endurance – of place as well as people – and ultimately, it’s uplifting.

A brilliant way of coming at the history of Berlin and Germany itself, which shows how people coped with the vicissitudes of the regime.

Harding has recorded the fate of the house and its inhabitants, from the Weimar republic until reunification. This is German history in microcosm ... as exciting as a good historical novel.

An inspirational read: highly recommended.

A genuinely remarkable work of biographical innovation.

I’d like to reread Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey every Christmas for at least the next five years: I love being between its humane pages, which celebrate both scholarly companionship and deep feeling for the past

Ruth Scurr’s innovative take on biography has an immediacy that brings the 17th century alive

Anyone who has not read Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey can have a splendid time reading it this summer. Scurr has invented an autobiography the great biographer never wrote, using his notes, letters, observations – and the result is gripping

A triumph, capturing the landscape and the history of the time, and Aubrey’s cadence.

A brilliantly readable portrait in diary form. Idiosyncratic, playful and intensely curious, it is the life story Aubrey himself might have written.

Scurr knows her subject inside out.

The diligent Scurr has evidence to support everything… Learning about him is to learn more about his world than his modest personality, but Scurr helps us feel his pain at the iconoclasm and destruction wrought by the Puritans without resorting to overwrought language.

Acclaimed and ingeniously conceived semi-fictionalised autobiography… Scurr’s greatest achievement is to bring both Aubrey and his world alive in detail that feels simultaneously otherworldly and a mirror of our own age… It’s hard to think of a biographical work in recent years that has been so bold and so wholly successful.