Antony Beevor Press Reviews
A magnificent piece of work - as superbly researched and original as Stalingrad, and compellingly told by a historian at the top of his powers. So much of the tragic story of Russia and the bloodlands of Eastern Europe over the past century make sense after reading Antony Beevor's epic and often shocking tale of revolution, civil war, oppression, starvation, brutality and shifting borders; if anyone needs to know why history matters, this book has the answers. Stunning. - James Holland
Brilliant and utterly readable. - Antonia Fraser
In Stalingrad, Berlin and The Second World War, Antony Beevor transformed military history by evoking the experiences of those who fought and suffered in some the greatest wars of the twentieth century. Now he has given us what may be his most brilliant book to date - a masterpiece of historical imagination, in which the tragedy and horror of this colossal struggle is recaptured, in its impact on everyday life as well as its military dimensions, as never before. This is a great book, whose depiction of savage inhumanity speaks powerfully to our present condition. - John Gray
In this brilliant marshalling of a notoriously complex history, Antony Beevor opens up a magisterial canvas of terror and tragedy. - Colin Thubron
A completely riveting account of how the Russian Revolution, which started with such high hopes and idealism, degenerated into a tangle of civil conflicts marked by hideous cruelty on all sides. Antony Beevor brings his great gifts for narrative and his deep interest in the people who both make history and suffer it to illuminate that crucial period whose consequences we are still living with today. - Margaret MacMillan
Beevor, best known for his formidable book Stalingrad, commands authority as a historian because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He's a skilled writer, but his prose is not what makes his books special. Rather, it's the confidence that his authority conveys - one senses that he knows his subject as well as anyone. He allows his mountain of evidence to speak for itself, simply charting the course of this horrible war, exposing its boundless cruelty. This is easily the most horrifying war story I've ever read. One wonders how Russia could ever contain so much suffering. -- Gerard DeGroot - THE TIMES, Book of the Week
Antony Beevor's Russia is a masterpiece of history - and a harrowing lesson for today... This is a hugely complex story, and Beevor tells it supremely well. The book is groundbreaking in its use of original evidence from many archives; it adds new facts, tests old claims and demolishes myths on both sides. It is impressively objective.. -- Noel Malcolm - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Beevor has provided an illuminating account of one of the darkest, and most misunderstood, periods of 20th-century history. It should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the origins of Soviet Russia. -- Jonathan Eaton - MILITARY HISTORY MATTERS
A gripping narrative history of one of the most complex episodes in modern Russian history... An impressive aspect of Beevor's latest book lies in the variety of its sources, from accounts of ill-tempered debates inside Lenin's Bolshevik Party to cocaine-snorting officers in the White resistance army... This combination of clarity with vividness is Beevor's defining strength as a historian. But he also never shies from the most difficult subject - violence. -- Misha Glenny - SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE
The book is a masterpiece. -- Sara Wheeler - THE SPECTATOR, lead review
About Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. A regular officer in the 11th Hussars, he served in Germany and England. He has published several novels, while his works of non-fiction include The Spanish Civil War, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, which won the 1993 Runciman Award, Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. With his wife, Artemis Cooper, he wrote Paris After the Liberation: 1944-1949.
His book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize in 1999. It became a number-one bestseller both in hardback and paperback, the UK edition alone selling half a million copies, and has been published around the world in twenty-one translations. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 has dominated the bestseller lists even more than Stalingrad. Most of his titles are published by Penguin.
Antony Beevor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.
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