“A fabulous way to understand over two millennia of history, all in one book.”

“A riveting story of some 400 years of British naval mastery—the great battles, the courageous sailors, and the often fanatical admirals—that serves as an especially timely reminder that national purpose and unity, coupled with a sense of self-sacrifice and heritage, really do win wars and keep the peace.”

“Provocative and well written, the book is really an extended argument, with Herman as interested in skinning liberals as he is in McCarthy’s story.”

“A sweeping intellectual history viewed through two ancient Greek lenses . . . breezy and enthusiastic but resting on a sturdy rock of research.”

“Woodrow Wilson, the liberal idealist, and Vladimir Lenin, the illiberal totalitarian, hand-in-glove unwound the old nineteenth-century order and redefined war as an existential and global struggle over ideas—with disastrous twentieth-century results. In yet another well-written and fascinating dual biography, the prolific and insightful historian Arthur Herman shows how Wilson’s naive good intentions and Lenin’s deliberate ruthlessness nonetheless had the same pernicious effect of using the state to defy human nature. A fascinating and entirely original explanation of the American and Russian origins of the modern world.”

“One of the most important books I have ever read.”