What is most impressive about the book is the author's erudition and the lightness with which he wears it

Arguably Britain's leading academic strategist examines how ideas about how future wars could be fought have shaped the reality, with usually baleful results. ... His message to policymakers is to beware those who tout "the ease and speed with which victory can be achieved while underestimating the resourcefulness of adversaries". Anybody who thinks otherwise should read this book

It reflects the author's immense knowledge and wisdom. It should feed our humility, because it reminds us of mankind's unlimited capacity for folly; and also of the need to sustain defences against all manner of threats, because the only certainty is that the next peril to confront us will be the one we least expect

The story of the BBC during the war has hardly been told though it is both fascinating and important. Edward Stourton's book is an engrossing account of this important time for one of our great institutions, perhaps to be read along side Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant novel Human Voices.

This engaging book about the BBC is full of astonishing incidents, truth versus propaganda and the unspoken heroism of correspondents. It tells how eyewitness reports gave a voice to everyone for the first time.

Highly readable. Auntie's War captures the peculiar mix of establishment conservatism and technocratic progressivism that shaped the BBC during its first decades, and demonstrates the huge reward in soft power that Britain reaped from its broadcasts to occupied Europe . . . He successfully brings out the craft that enabled the best radio performers to enthral their listeners.

Highly readable history

Must read: an affectionate and finely researched look at the BBC's inner workings during this critical period.

Broadcaster Ed Stourton's history of the BBC during the war is rich in incident and character and almost makes you fall in love with the old girl again.

Lively...a definitive account

The BBC had a "good war". It generally gave a high-minded moral tone to Britain's war effort, entertained the people during dark and uncertain days and won their affection and confidence. In this engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history, Edward Stourton, a veteran broadcaster, reveals how and why this occurred. It is a moving and amusing tale full of colourful episodes.

Fascinating

A truly great story

The Czech nation will surely feel that he has done [Lata Brandisova] justice.

Few historians could be better placed to investigate this subject than Keith Lowe . . . riveting

Magisterial. The biography of Maclean we have all been waiting for

Admirable… [a] compassionate, absorbing book

[A] persuasive and polished biography

Roland Philipps illuminates, in both broad and subtle strokes

Philipps does an admirable job of piecing together the spy’s tale

Philipps’s telling of the tale is masterly. He weaves a complex web of professional, psychological and marital themes into a wonderful fluent, coherent and compelling narrative

Elegant, thorough and surprisingly exciting

[A] superbly told tale

In A Spy Named Orphan Roland Philipps’s description of Donald Maclean’s psychological make-up chimes with what I have always felt about the Cambridge spies (Philby excepted) – namely, that their romance with the Soviet Union partook of patriotism as much as it did of espionage… Philipps makes the story and the slow uncovering of his treachery a gripping narrative and an overwhelmingly sad one