Rod Read

An engrossing, vivid and heartrending read which grips you with its size and magnificence, truly a Tolstoy of WWII. Russkie names/patronymics/nicknames are hard to follow but get 'Life & Fate' the sequel - which you will want anyway - and in my paperback at least that gives all the characters & relations in an appendix.

Ace book about my home locality. Born on the riverbank of the Old Bedford drainage canal I have spent most of my eight decades living within a few hundred metres of these alterations bemoaning the destruction of our last great English wilderness, despite farming myself. This account sets the violence of the drainage 'improvements' in the true historical, social, economic, class and imperial context. That it should take an antipodean to open our eyes shows how thoroughly we have all been fooled by the PR and propaganda which existed way back in the 1590s and forward until today.