Over the years I have read many books about the Battle of Britain and of those I consider this the best. It is extremely well written and describes how the challenges were met even though the pilots were so fatigued. Some bits of humour (Come and meet 145 squadron.Nice chaps-all two of them )throughout it.Brief mention of three American pilots who later left to join the Eagle Squadron.One of them(Shorty Keogh) was so small(4ft 10in) he had to use two air cushions and his parachute pack to see through the windscreen of his Spitfire.

this is a book that both benefits and suffers from extensive research. It is entirely undigested and frequently wrong on the facts. While the writing is good during the telling of each anecdote, the failure to develop any characters or for that matter a plot quickly makes reading tedious. A shame, because there is a lot of first-rate raw material here. The author just doesn't evaluate it critically, or tie any of it together.

Collier's work is one of the finest examples of what good historical narrative can be. He uses historical information to write history in an engaging and interesting manner. Collier's work is one of the definitive works on the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. Critics of this book will probably say the same things critics of Herodotus said. Collier does lack statistics, numbers and charts that people have come to associate with history, but makes up for it in his narrative.

This is a superb companion to Alfred Crosby's work on the Influenza Pandemic. Collier's focus is more global and excludes the American experience while Crosby focuses almost solely on the American experience. Collier writes in the style of Herodotus while Crosby's leanings are more to a Thucydidian style of writing. One of the two books is bound to appeal to almost everybody. Reading both books, though, gives one a more comprehensive view of the event.

If academic history is not to your taste, read Iezzoni or Kolata's work on the subject. They borrow heavily from Collier and Crosby, but write with a more public audience in mind.

I found this book dissapointing, because it puts to great an emphasis on Clara Pettacci his mistress. Furthermore the emphsis is on mainly on the romantic while a biography of such an important political figure should have at least stressed the damage which the Petacci family caused the regime. They took full advantage of the relations with Mussolini to become one of the main elements in the corruption that was one of the features of the Fascist regime in its last years.