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Rating: 
Summary: New history?
Review: After stating on page 11, that Ben Franklin worked for British intelligence during the Revolutionary War the rest of this author's work is discredited.
Rating: 
Summary: Bracing and Breezy
Review: Zamoyski's ambitious book is a triumph. His sweep encompasses virtually all of Europe and North and South America from the 1770s to the 1870s. His theme is the way in which radicals, nationalists and revolutionaries appropriated religious fervour, rituals and iconography for their own protean causes. We meet an amazing assortment of cranks, would-be messiahs, unfocused idealists, adventurers and imposters. Though the events it describes are sometimes quite tragic, enlivened by Zamoyski's unfailing light touch it is one of the funniest history books I have ever read. I'm sure in a book of this scope specialist historians will find minor errors of fact; but general readers should not be deterred. Sometimes the need to simplify matters leads to some questionable interpretations. For example, I thought Zamoyski understated the extent to which the French were duped by Bismark into starting the Franco-Prussian War. I also felt he was running out a steam towards the end, so that his treatment of the Paris Commune was not as rich as one might have hoped. As someone who has long been baffled by the need for many European and American countries constantly to rehash their foundational myths, I found Zamoyski's good humoured debunking of them hugely enjoyable. Anyone interested in modern history should read this splendid book as a matter of urgency.
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