Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece

One of the most arresting documents in war literature.

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific - the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary - into terms we mortals can grasp.

In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge's. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals' safe accounts of--not the "good war"--but the worst war ever.

This exciting book proves that such obscurity is both surprising and undeserved

A thrilling account

Fascinating book

Skilfully evokes the dread that corsairs aroused

Tinniswood's artful blend of narrative and analysis brings the pirates' society to life. Beneath the vivid surface of this book there lie, sometimes obscured by the vividness, the careful investigation and astute judgement of one of the most incisive of our popular historians.

North African pirates were the scourge of the 17th century, and plundered as far as Cornwall. Tinniswood tells their story with verve

The author's style is an absolute joy and his stories of attacks, based in eyewitness accounts, make rather more thrilling than many fictional thrillers are... He also proves an even-handed judge. While there's no attempt to whitewash the privateers here, there are explanations of what caused men to turn their hand to conquering the seas.

This well-researched history of piracy presents brutal seafaring extortionists instead of eye-patched rascals.

Tinniswood unearths colourful characters and historical oddities while pointing out that the West's inability to deal with Somali pirates show how little we've learned in 400 years

Meticulously researched history of unrestrained murder, robbery and kidnapping on the high seas... This is a brisk, entertaining story, with royal proclamations, letters, maps and lavishness illuminating Tinniswood's vivid tales.

[He] has unearthed many colourful characters and historical oddities and uses eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale

An astounding story of bitter civil warfare that raged across many countries for decades. Butterworth's passionate account of the anarchist movements born in the late 19th century describes a conflict that spawned its own "war on terror"