'This confident account of the Arctic convoy battles stretches from the diplomatic bargaining of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill to the grim, personal stories of death and survival of the crews of the torpedoed and bombed merchant ships. Sebag-Montefiore casts his net wide, with evidence from not only British and American sources, but Russian and German too. This book is original, comprehensive, dynamic and thought-provoking'
Roger Knight, author of Convoys: The British Struggle against Napoleonic Europe and America
PRAISE FOR HUGH SEBAG-MONTEFIORE'S SOMME
'Having read almost everything that is written on this battle, I can vouch that this is the best account
yet. Sebag-Montefiore deserves congratulation for restoring humanity to this battle'
Gerard DeGroot, The Times'Magisterial, exemplary, heartbreaking. So original is the material, and so inventive is Sebag-Montefiore's approach - telling each stage of the fight from the perspective of both the combatants and their families back home - that this well-known tale is rendered strange again. Written with great style and sensitivity, superbly illustrated with many original plates and beautifully drawn maps, Sebag-Montefiore's brilliant new study will set the benchmark for a generation'
Saul David, Daily Telegraph'Sebag-Montefiore's combination of thoughtful analysis with first-hand testimony from army soldiers, cameramen and diarists lends a gritty immediacy'
Ian Thomson, Observer'The best historians of the war have always made good use of the words written by the participants themselves, but few have done so as effectively as here. A moving record'
Daily Mail