Smith's new book is scorching in both its steady cognizance of America's original racial sins . . . and apprehension about history's direction. . . . These historical poems have a homely, unvarnished sort of grace

The poems in Wade in the Water are full of memorable images nimbly put together by Smith's exquisite sense of timing and her feel for the kind of language appropriate to the poem.

Smith brings great intelligence and sensitivity to her poems, leading readers deeper into other people's stories and ultimately into their own humanity.

Smith's poetry is an awakening itself

In lines that are as lyrical as they are wise . . . Smith makes connections between the current state of American culture and its history

Smith is the country's poetic caretaker, calling both for collective reckoning and collective empathy

On a craft level, these poems are impeccable. . . . I know brilliance when I read it and this book is brilliant

For Smith, poetry is hospitable: accommodating whatever she is moved to write. Her work witnesses, protests and raises its own roof. . . . Smith emerges as a poet in charge of her own creation myth and a recorder of destructive realities

Her work witnesses, protests and raises its own roof.... Excellent and bracing

Powerful and tender

Unmissable... a collection of poems exploring what it means to be a woman and a citizen in a culture directed by wealth, men and violence

Personal and ambitious

Weimar Germany… was arty, tolerant, and forward-looking. But other forces lurked. Hett explains these forces, and their devastating effects, superbly well.

Chilling reading … Serves as a warning to the West’s imperilled democracies … Faced with jingoist politicians who resort to poisonous lies, [Hett’s] book fairly proclaims, the forces of democracy can prevail only if they muster courage, resolve and cooperative spirit.

Histories of Nazi Germany can be overwhelming. The Death of Democracy is carefully focused on the conditions and cynical choices that enabled Nazism, in just a few years turning one of the world’s most advanced and liberal societies into a monstrosity. Its author is also that rarity, a specialist who writes lucidly and engagingly. In this post-truth, alternative-facts American moment, The Death of Democracy is essential reading.

The story of how Germany turned from democracy to dictatorship in the fifteen years following World War I is not a simple one. But the moral lessons are exceptionally clear. Benjamin Carter Hett honours that complexity in this account while never straying from the path of moral clarity. An outstanding accomplishment.

Hett’s brisk and lucid study offers compelling new perspectives inspired by current threats to free societies around the world… It is both eerie and enlightening how much of Hett’s account rings true in our time. The larger story he tells resonates, too.

A first-rate history lesson with a surprisingly prescient message for the world of today... Hett's sharp prose and careful use of newfound material not only sets the work apart from that of his peers, but also effectively draws significant (and particularly scary) parallels with current socio-political climates.

Inspirational

Powerful ... hard to put down.

Comparisons to Man's Search for Meaning are natural but this work has the potential to be even more bold.

The distressed fabric of the author's traumatic past becomes a beautiful backdrop for a memoir written with integrity and conviction...A searing, astute study of intensive healing and self-acceptance through the absolution of suffering and atrocity.

A splendidly colourful read ... an enthralling and resonant story of populist politicians, and religious war, and the reshaping of nations

This book’s fascination is as a joint portrait of the royal couple, the most human of historical actors in England’s greatest political drama.

A highly intelligent, fair and sympathetic biography.

[ An] absorbing biography of Charles I

This is a striking insight into both developing contemporary thought and religious controversies

White King is a lively attempt to make him [Charles I] flesh and blood