Phantom Terror

"Scintillating and original."

"Zamoyski, who writes with flair and an eye for amusing detail, is particularly good on things Russian."

"Zamoyski's excellent eye for examples of inane censorship and particularly absurd displays of police incompetence will keep readers turning the pages."

Zamoyski tells us how tyranny was felt on the ground. What results is something vivid, terrifying, and often quite funny.... A superbly drawn story."

Splendidly provocative...full of arresting details and sharp asides. Adam Zamoyski writes like a dancer at a court ball: gracious, patrician, masterful, sure-footed."

"This diligently researched, beautifully written, and passionately argued work of scholarship completely convinces. Adam Zamoyski conclusively proves his case against the reactionary European Legitimist monarchy-dictatorships, and he does so with appropriately aristocratic panache. In so doing he leads an entire herd of sacred cows to the abattoir of history. This is revisionist history at its absolute best."

"With characteristic flair and elegance, Adam Zamoyski dissects the paranoia, suspicion, and conspiracy theories which followed in the wake of the French Revolution.... Phantom Terror is a timely and original history book, a brilliant guide to the past which will inspire reflections about the present as well."

"A sweeping history of the rise of state control in Europe from 1789 to 1848... Mr. Zamoyski demonstrates an impressive command of political history and international relations as he chronicles the practices of state-sponsored censorship, surveillance and brutality that, in his view, ultimately prompted the revolutions they were intended to prevent."