Schama’s greatest gift is a sure eye for an extraordinary story…This isn’t what you get from conventional historians or conventional art writers, more’s the pity…Schama has written books which will still be bought and talked about a century from now and he hasn’t lost an ounce of zest or intelligence. Damn him…

He knows the history, the biography, and the art history…he made me look and learn. He is a great storyteller and we learn something new on every page.

All of these lives rendered with an acuity of detail that could rival the best of portraitists … describing Lawrence’s portrait of Wilberforce, Schama calls the painting a work of “transforming empathy”. That phrase could be true of his storytelling throughout this book.

Schama has a masterly ability to conjure up character and vivify conflict

With Schama you look at a picture and see it as you hadn’t before

Splendid, spirited, immensely enjoyable and wide-ranging

Shows Schama at his best . . . as full of memorable incident as a Bellow novel and wittier than a Woody Allen movie

Schama writes with grace and wit, and his enthusiasms are contagious

Dazzling, beyond praise