This is the only book on the Crimean War anyone could need. It is lucid, well-written, alive and sensitive. Above all, it tells us why this neglected conflict and its forgotten victims deserve our remembrance
Oliver Bullough
The Independent
This is a heart-rending book ... its importance cannot be overestimated ... This book should be made compulsory reading in Russia today
Antony Beevor, author of 'Stalingrad' A wonderful subject, on every level, and with Orlando Figes it has found the historian worthy of its width and depth
Norman Stone
Standpoint
Figes is a first class historian... [he] proves an excellent guide to the vagaries of the battlefield, the suffering of the ordinary soldiers and the way in which the war became a crucial part of late-Victorian patriotic mythology, contributing to a new ethos of muscular Christianity
Dominic Sandbrook
Daily Telegraph
Orlando Figes ... is back doing what he does best - telling us things about Russia and the world that we did not know, and proving that they are important to our understanding of the world today ... With his deep understanding of Russia and its uncomfortable opposition in the world, Figes elegantly underlines how the cold war of the Soviet era froze over fundamental fault lines that had opened up in the 19th century
Angus MacQueen
The Observer
It is a fine stirring account, expertly balancing analysis with a patchwork of quotation from a wide variety of spectators and participants, together with an impressive narrative across the vast panoramic sweep of the war ... However, the book's true originality lies in its unravelling of the Crimean War's religious origins
Mark Bostridge
Financial Times
Keenly judged, vivid history of a bloody and pointless conflict
Sunday Times Culture
An exhaustively researched, beautifully written book
Saul David
BBC History
One of our most engaging narrative historians, Orlando Figes has produced with his latest book a rollickingly good account of a war that shocked mid-Victorian England ... intelligent and reliable history ... Figes is a stylish and compelling narrator
Lesley Chamberlain
Literary Review
An impressive piece of scholarship ... a concise portrait of the political situation of the time
Telegraph Books of the Year 2010
A stellar historian. As ever, it mixes strong narrative pace, a grand canvas and compelling ideas about current geopolitical tensions
Tristram Hunt
Observer Best Books of the Year: 2010
A sparkling and in passages brilliant account ... it stands amply and slendidly on its own two feet
David Hearst
Guardian
A first-class historian, as his splendid new book, an epic account of the Crimean War of 1853-56, amply demonstrates
Daily Telegraph
A model of wide-lens military history
Dan Jones
The Times (Christmas books 2010)
Wonderful ... an amazing panoramic view ... I've rarely read anything like it
Claire Tomalin A masterful account of lost and stolen lives
Sunday Times
Awesome ... one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I defy anyone to read it without weeping at its human suffering, cruelty and courage ... in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Mail on Sunday