Tough and principled, it is a testimony to his astonishing energy and stamina... It displays a calmness, a perfectly justified habit of intellectual (but always egalitarian) authority, and a considerable courage...

Hoggart has been a pawky, powerful and articulate critic of the way we live now for more than forty years... His arguments are detailed and thoughtful... He demonstrates that not everyone, even now, has lost the passion, the decency and the critical rage that he mourns.

A fascinating story, eloquently told and packed with recondite material... a model history for the general reader.

With the selective skill of a great master painter who makes the most minute detail play its part in the whole composition, Vincent Cronin has, in this distinguished book, sifted for us the living spectacle of the quattrocento in the hub of Tuscany.

A real-life Hunt For Red October

From page one, it reads like a novel. How they uncovered all this stuff is remarkable

The most comprehensive look at the work of these intrepid sailors . . . A celebration of their ingenuity and valor

Reads like an adventure novel, but it's all to real

The veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more