Terrific . . . It is a measure of his literary skill, as well as his expertise as a historian, that he is able to counterpoint so many life stories without sinking into confusion . . . Foster's prose is urbanely precise and he can pin down character as memorably as Yeats . . . Foster has the alertness of an Edwardian novelist to the nuances of class and location . . . depicted with masterly economy in all its brutality, confusion and courage . . . Patient, analytical, articulate, this is a book that counts because it avoids the Irish vice of replacing history with commemoration

This book . . . reveals a rich and assorted cast of characters with a diversity of views and preoccupations - feminism, socialism, religious diversity, sexual liberalism, the works . . . The beauty of Vivid Faces is that it is squarely based on the testimonies of the characters themselves - letters, diaries, articles, books and later memories - and shows them as they were, not in the light of what they became, especially those revolutionaries sanctified in the selective historical memory of the Irish Republic . . . There are very funny accounts here of how summer schools in the Irish-speaking west of Ireland were an opportunity for unchaperoned young people enthusiastically to pair off . . . There can be few better accounts of [these] people . . . than this book. Foster writes with unconcealed delight about the foibles of these wonderful individuals as well as their achievements . . . There will be any number of accounts of the Easter Rising and its genesis in the run up to the centenary, but few will be as enjoyable as this

Foster has managed to produce the most complete and plausible exploration of the roots of the 1916 Rebellion and the power it subsequently exerted over the public imagination. As the centenary approaches, his book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to follow the argument about the Irish revolutionary generation

A significant accomplishment that makes a serious case for the concept of 'generations' in exploring the origins of the Rising . . . Through personal diaries, letters and journals, [Foster] allows us to see how these young people lived. What follows is a portrait of an Ireland that bears little resemblance to the country that emerged after 1922 . . . Foster's book, in unmatchable prose, is a must-read

Powerful and absorbing . . . [Foster] draws on decades of engagement with cultural history to bring an original, lively and learned analysis to a fascinating generation . . . Judicious and empathetic, with no attempt to hide his admiration for their idealism, he does not fall into the trap of assessing them acerbically through the lens of the present but allows their own words to breathe. Much of his account is riveting and skilfully woven together, with the analysis enlivened by Foster's customary sparkling prose . . . [he] does a lot to balance male-dominated accounts of the period . . . Crucially, this is not a book built on reductive hindsight; instead it gives us a deep and textured awareness of that "enclosed, self-referencing, hectic world" where the thinkers lived, worked, reflected and dreamed

Roy Foster . . . has achieved what few have managed: an account of the Irish revolution that captures its quixotic ardour without succumbing to it . . . Vivid Faces is a wonderful book about revolution - both the specific and the general. I read it in the aftermath of Scotland's abortive revolution by referendum and found Foster's analysis painfully wise

Written by a master-historian, this superbly orchestrated group portrait of Ireland's 'revolutionary generation' from 1890 to 1923 shows how the independence movement drew its ideas, tactics and personnel not from peasant outsiders but metropolitan, middle-class insiders . . . Foster highlights refreshing new perspectives

Extraordinary personal journeys outlined in Foster's richly detailed evocation of a period of Irish history in which idealism, bohemianism and artistic creativity went with a resurgence of militant nationalism and what Foster calls 'the cult of the gun' . . . Foster's exhaustively researched history delineates the various streams of cultural and social radicalism that converged in the two decades leading up to the Irish revolution

Sometimes a history book prompts one to reflect on the past and present alike. R F Foster, professor of Irish history at Oxford University, has just published such a text . . . Foster writes so compellingly

Written with a stern sense of authority, but simultaneously leaving room for suggestion, interpretation, debate and nuance, Vivid Faces is an immensely important analysis of Irish history that will be used again and again as a reference point for generations to come: continuing a much-needed healthy debate about what exactly Irish Republicanism stands for?

It is a relief to read such a study, which takes for granted that the world is incorrigibly plural, and which immerses itself in the stuff of passionate human histories

The book itself is a valuable collection of a broad range of views of participants that publishers dared not mention for decades. It dissects the propaganda to provide an insightful look at the real contemporary thinking . . . invaluable historical record

Generous, humane and stylish

[Khan marshals] a dazzling array of first-hand sources – soldiers and politicians, but also non-combatants such as nurses, refugees, peasants and prostitutes – to illustrate the effect the conflict had on South Asian society and politics

[an] important book

Khan’s research has been extensive and she combines it with a gift for storytelling. She is at her best and most original in bringing us the revealing perspectives of witnesses other historians might ignore.

An exhaustively researched history that uses a dazzling array of first-hand sources to illustrate the effect the Second World War had on South Asian society and politics

[Khan] shows convincingly how Indians could no longer be fooled, or fool themselves, that the British presence was either benign or irreversible

Revelatory study… Khan balances analysis, history and human compassion in a narrative that leaves one shaken.

Khan has written a first class book... Exceptionally well told facts throughout the book, I was staggered at her revelations … It is a bitter, sweet story throughout … Overall, the book enlightened me in many ways, perhaps it makes me regard the Indian in a different light today. It certainly has made me look up other deeper facts about various matters pertaining to the era of the Second World War, and that has to be a good inducement to read the book.

a book of the greatest importance… written with searing intellectual honesty.

Snyder's extraordinary book may be about events more than seventy years ago, but its lessons about human nature are as relevant now as then

Disturbing but utterly compelling... The how’s and whys of what happened have never been better explained.

Highly praised, and indeed it is a worthy contribution to the subject.

Harding has recorded the fate of the house and its inhabitants, from the Weimar republic until reunification. This is German history in microcosm ... as exciting as a good historical novel.

An inspirational read: highly recommended.

A genuinely remarkable work of biographical innovation.

I’d like to reread Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey every Christmas for at least the next five years: I love being between its humane pages, which celebrate both scholarly companionship and deep feeling for the past

Ruth Scurr’s innovative take on biography has an immediacy that brings the 17th century alive

Anyone who has not read Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey can have a splendid time reading it this summer. Scurr has invented an autobiography the great biographer never wrote, using his notes, letters, observations – and the result is gripping

A triumph, capturing the landscape and the history of the time, and Aubrey’s cadence.

A brilliantly readable portrait in diary form. Idiosyncratic, playful and intensely curious, it is the life story Aubrey himself might have written.

Scurr knows her subject inside out.

The diligent Scurr has evidence to support everything… Learning about him is to learn more about his world than his modest personality, but Scurr helps us feel his pain at the iconoclasm and destruction wrought by the Puritans without resorting to overwrought language.

Acclaimed and ingeniously conceived semi-fictionalised autobiography… Scurr’s greatest achievement is to bring both Aubrey and his world alive in detail that feels simultaneously otherworldly and a mirror of our own age… It’s hard to think of a biographical work in recent years that has been so bold and so wholly successful.