From the reviews of 1812:
‘An utterly admirable book. It benefits from a far wider range of sources (including Russian and Polish) than previous works, and combines clarity of thought and prose with a strong narrative drive’
Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph
‘Zamoyski’s lucid, understated style stands in vivid contrast to turbulent, overblown events. The carnage at Borodino, not equalled until the first day of the Somme, is meticulously researched and retold through eye-witness experiences … It is a great, affecting story. It has found its best chronicler … Zamoyski has constructed a triumph of historical writing’
Glasgow Herald
‘A gripping tale. Mr Zamoyski has trawled the memoirs and military histories to create a mosaic of personal accounts and statistics. His elegant prose rarely falters’
Economist
‘The best non-fiction version to be written so far … As well as mastering the huge geopolitical and strategic issues at stake in the campaign, Zamoyski is brilliant at explaining what it must have been like to be a foot soldier … The use of first-hand accounts brings home the horror’
Mail on Sunday
‘It is hard to believe a better book will ever be written on this subject. The author has consulted many original documents, letters and diaries. His account is so vivid that you feel the chill and can almost see the suffering. If Count Zamoyski does not win every literary prize going with this magnificent and utterly readable work of scholarship, then there is no justice’
Simon Heffer, Country Life
‘We all know about Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Read this book and you will feel that you have as good as lived it … A slice of narrative history which reads as compellingly as the best fiction’
Ireland on Sunday
‘Zamoyski has re-examined the evidence and created a modern account that takes a giant step closer to how it really was … Zamoyski elegantly delivers gripping storytelling, bold revisionism, and poignant suffering’
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Scotsman
‘An astounding recreation. Particularly moving are the many personal testimonies on which much of it is based … One of the most extraordinary narrations I have read, with many of the attributes of a great painting’
Daily Express
‘1812 is a gripping read and deserves to become for the Napoleonic war in Russia what Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad has become for Operation Barbarossa’
Sunday Business Post