The World at War was one of the greatest television series of all time. It demonstrated the potential power of history on television and inspired a generation. It is tremendously exciting that the complete interviews with the participants from The World at War are now published here for the first time. Most of the people who were interviewed for the series are now dead, but their vital history - thanks to this book - still lives

A treasure trove of eyewitness accounts

For all Burke's ground-level eye, ... this is as much a book of scholarship as reportage, deftly analysing the shortcomings of both the bin Laden and the Bush camps ... Pacy, well-researched, and packed with telling anecdotes, this book's strength is in its detailed, balanced overview ... At a time when there are more books out on terrorism than ever before ... this is likely to be among the best, be the reader an armchair commander in London or a real one in Lashkar Gah

Jason Burke ... is one of the most respected and experienced foreign correspondents in the business ... A major authority on the politics and organisation of Islamic extremism and ... a talented writer with the rare gift of joining effortless prose to challenging scholarship. He marshals both talents in this latest book ... It is a magnificent achievement

A reader wanting a more dispassionate survey of how 9/11, and the response to it, may have shaped parts of the world will do no better than invest in [this] brilliant book ... The work of a journalist who has not only been there and witnessed, but also visited and revisited the places most affected by terror and the war on it ... The must-read on [the 9/11] anniversary

This remarkably balanced, well-sourced and very well-written book ... will be turned to in the future ... Burke avoids all the classic pitfalls of war correspondents writing history ... [He] has demonstrated impressive expertise as a historian who has had the advantage of having been present on many of the battlefields he describes

[A] lucid, sane account ... Burke's taut, careful reporting puts back the facts that were clouded out. He talks to the right academics, the right spooks, but also to anyone willing to explain themselves, mullahs or pols or market traders, soldiers as well as generals, even suicide bombers who changed their minds at the last minute ... Remarkable

A comprehensive summing up of the past decade's violent events ... Throughout, Burke's concern is to insist any accurate rendering must show the murky, convoluted nature of Western nations imposing one good-bad narrative on frequently unrelated local conflicts ... The 9/11 Wars warrants great respect

Accessibly written and deserves a wide audience. Above all, Edgerton demonstrates that the war is a subject we haven't yet heard nearly enough about. Britain's War Machine is a considerable achievement

Edgerton has excelled himself with this highly revisionist account of Britain's national performance during the Second World War ... an unusually provocative book

Edgerton has written what could prove to be one of the most influential books on the history of the Second World War ... majestic ... [he] has successfully shown us that we still have a lot to learn about the conflict ... it will become the required reading for all students wishing to study the Second World War

An astounding work of myth-busting ... Inspiring and unsettling in equal measure

Majestic ... a wonderful read. It has probably popped more myths than any other book on the war in recent years

Brilliant and iconoclastic ... debunks the myth that Britain was militarily and economically weak and intellectually parochial during the 1930s and 1940s

Truly eye-opening ... Edgerton's carefully researched book will fundamentally change the way you think about World War II

Riveting ... a wonderfully rich book ... thoroughly stimulating

A major new assessment of Britain's war effort from 1939 to 1945. Never again will some of the lazy assessments of how Britain performed over these years ... be acceptable. That's why this is such an important book

Innovative and most important

Compelling and engaging ... an excellent read

Edgerton's well-researched volume bursts with data that reveal Britain's true strength even when supposed to be in critical condition

Britain's War Machine offers the boldest revisionist argument that seeks to overturn some of our most treasured assumptions about Britain's role in the war ... Edgerton [is] an economic historian with an army of marshalled facts and figures at his fingertips ... This is truly an eye-opening book that explodes the masochistic myth of poor little Britain, revealing the island as a proud power with the resources needed to fight and win a world war

Masterful Britain's War Machine promotes the notion that the United Kingdom of the Forties was a superpower, with access to millions of men across the globe, and forming the heart of a global production network