'This excellent book of eye-witness accounts ranges from Thucydides reporting on the plague at Athens in 420 BC to James Fenton wandering through the Marcos's boudoir after the coup d'etat in Manila . . . This book is vigorous and vivid; and it is an assertion of the importance and power of the written word.' Kenneth Baker, The Times. 'A wonderful book to browse in - a treasury of curios, touching memorabilia, shocking facts . . . It deserves a place by the bedside of every literary insomniac.' Jonathan Raban, Observer.