Kehinde Andrews shines a light on the truth of our past and in doing so lights the way forward. Essential reading

An uncompromising account of the roots of racism today

Skillfully interweaving economics, politics, and history to debunk popular narratives of social progress, this searing takedown hits home

Kehinde Andrews is a crucial voice walking in a proud tradition of Black radical criticism and action

This book is a provocation. It is not meant to make us comfortable or inspired, but rather to remind us of the hard truth that the West was built on slavery, genocide, and colonialism-the bases of racial capitalism and modern empire. And as Kehinde Andrews argues, we are still living this imperial nightmare, still reaping the consequences of contemporary racialized violence and exploitation. The lesson: no freedom under racism, no future under capitalism, no justice without decolonization.

Professor Andrews takes the reader on a journey, and it isn't a comfortable one. I challenge you to pick up this book and read it carefully, once that is done, I am sure the reader will be challenged, in thinking and hopefully actions moving forward.

This book is a radical, necessary indictment of the racist structures that produced the current anti-Black world order. Historically rigorous and deeply researched, Kehinde Andrews writes with lucidity about the global tactics of Western imperialism, centuries ago and at present. His clear-eyed analysis insists upon the revolutionary acts of freedom we will need to break out of these systems of violence

Professor Andrews never misses. And this is a compelling account of European Empires and the cost of their plunder

Uncompromising and intelligent. Kehinde is taking the conversation deeper and further - exactly where it needs to go.

Destined to serve as a kind of primary text for a new generation of students of antiracism looking to get to grips with the violence of our imperial inheritance

My book of the year . . . a masterful history of Colditz. It's absurdly readable (and at times just absurd) as well as being informative, hilarious and deeply moving

I got so absorbed in Philip Short's biography of Putin that I overshot my [train] stop

Stupendous... The definitive biography of the man, and I do not expect it to be eclipsed as such in my lifetime, or ever

A monument of information and sober common sense. Of all the books I have read about Putin, this is the most comprehensive and sensible

Elegantly written and pacy

(Praise for Philip Short on Mao): 'It is everything one could hope for: magisterial, beautifully written... and rich in material'

(Praise for Philip Short on Mao): 'A beautifully written, grippingly readable biography... A formidable piece of research'

(Praise for Philip Short on Pot Pot): 'Extraordinary and brilliant'

(Praise for Philip Short on Pot Pot): 'A superb, chilling, yet human portrait of a monster'

(Praise for Philip Short on Mitterand): 'A stunningly detailed investigation of a monumental political character'

(Praise for Philip Short on Mitterand): 'Deeply researched and marvellously readable'

Comprehensive

[A] meticulously researched biography

The greatest British diarist of the 20th century. A feast of weapons-grade above-stairs gossip.

Through interviews and personal experience, Katja Hoyer brings a new understanding to a country that has now vanished ... A fresh look at what life was like for average people in East Germany ... intriguing and surprising

With Beyond the Wall, Katja Hoyer confirms her place as one of the best young historians writing in English today. On the heels of her superb Blood and Iron, about the rise and fall of the Second Reich, comes another masterpiece, this one about the aftermath of the Third Reich in the East. Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, it explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany

Utterly brilliant. This gripping account of East Germany sheds new light on what for many of us remains an opaque chapter of history. Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-WW2 Europe

A gripping and nuanced history of the GDR from its beginnings as a separate German socialist state against the wishes of Stalin to its final rapprochement with its Western other against those of Gorbachev. Beyond the Wall is a unique fresco of everyday reality in East Germany. Elegantly moving between diplomatic history, political economy and cultural analysis, this is an essential read to understand not only the life and death of the GDR but also the parts of it that still survive in the emotions of its former citizens.

Superb, totally fascinating and compelling, Katja Hoyer's first full history of East Germany's rise and fall is a work of revelatory original research - and a gripping read with a brilliant cast of characters. Essential reading

A beyond-brilliant new picture of the rise and fall of the East German state. Katja Hoyer gives us not only pin-sharp historical analysis, but an up-close and personal view of both key characters and ordinary citizens whose lives charted some of the darkest hours of the Cold War. If you thought you knew the history of East Germany, think again. An utterly riveting read

A fantastic, sparkling book, filled with insights not only about East Germany but about the Cold War, Europe and the forging of the 20th and 21st centuries

The joke has it that the duty of the last East German to escape from the country was to turn off the lights. In Beyond the Wall Katja Hoyer turns the light back on and gives us the best kind of history: frank, vivid, nuanced and filled with interesting people

A refreshing and eye-opening book on a country that is routinely reduced to cartoonish cliché. Beyond the Wall is a tribute to the ordinary East Germans who built themselves a society that - for a time - worked for them, a society carved out of a state founded in the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism

A colourful and often revelatory re-appraisal of one of modern history's most fascinating political curiosities. Katja Hoyer skilfully weaves diverse political and private lives together, from the communist elite to ordinary East Germans

Katja Hoyer is becoming the authoritative voice in the English speaking world for all things German. Thanks to her, German history has the prominence in the Anglosphere it certainly deserves.

Katja Hoyer brilliantly shows that the history of East Germany was a significant chapter of German history, not just a footnote to it or a copy of the Soviet Union. To understand Germany today we have to grapple with the history and legacy of its all but dismissed East

Katja Hoyer's return to discover what happened to her homeland - the old East Germany - is an excellent counterpoint to Stasiland by Anna Funder

Beguiling and beautifully written, this is the work of an author with a bright future

Coruscating originality, emotional potency, astonishing artistic vim... This signals the arrival of a truly breathtaking literary voice... A scintillating tour de force

Fierce and accomplished, Assembly interrogates the high cost of surviving in a system designed to exclude you

I was blown away by Assembly, an astonishing book that forces us to see what's underpinning absolutely everything

Coiled and charged, a small shockwave... Sometimes you come across a short novel of such compressed intensity that you wonder why anyone would bother reading longer narratives... [Assembly] casts a huge shadow

A masterwork . . . it contains centuries of wisdom, aesthetic experimentation and history. Brown handles her debut with a surgeon's control and a musician's sensitivity to sound

An extraordinary book, and a compelling read that had me not only gripped but immediately determined to listen again... Highly recommended

'As utterly, urgently brilliant as everyone has said. A needle driven directly into the sclerotic heart of contemporary Britain. Beautiful proof that you don't need to write a long book, just a good book'

Every line of this electrifying debut novel pulses with canny social critique

Devastatingly eloquent, bold, poignant

An achievement that will leave you wondering just how it's possible that this is only the author's very first work... Brown packs so much commentary and insight inside of every single sentence... Original and startling all at once. After reading Assembly, I cannot wait to see what Natasha Brown does next

[Brown's] work is like that of an excellent photographer - you feel like you are finally seeing the world sharply and without the common filters. That is hypnotising

A brilliantly compressed, existentially daring study of a high-flying Black woman negotiating the British establishment