The World That Never Was

A rich and passionate account of the world's first international terrorist campaign... Brilliant... A thrilling and important book

Sunday Times

Alex Butterworth, in this wide-ranging account of 19th-century anarchist activity, does justice to both sides of the picture - the glowing ideal, its shady enactment

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Daily Telegraph

An astounding story of bitter civil warfare that raged across many countries for decades. Butterworth's passionate account of the anarchist movements born in the late 19th century describes a conflict that spawned its own "war on terror"

Steve Burniston, Guardian

Butterworth has created an impressive work which will captivate those unfamiliar with anarchist history and teach even specialists much that they did not know before

Independent

Butterworth writes lucidly, in fine detail

Peter Preston, Observer

Butterworth's fascination with his subject drips from the page...this is entertaining stuff

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Compelling and insightful... The World That Never Was is a compelling narrative history both of a generation of demonised and battered - but optimistic - revolutionaries...and of the political police forces ranged against them

Stuart Christie, Guardian

Exhilarating...almost any paragraph packs more action than an entire Dan Brown novel

Financial Times

Historian Butterworth makes a first-rate addition to the growing list of books dealing with terrorism's origins and history... Delivering a virtuoso performance, Butterworth adds the hope that history will not repeat itself and that a successful new bloody ideology will not create the next scourge

Publisher's Weekly

Intriguing, provocative and written with a novelist's eye for detail, this book is an engrossing journey into a murky, subterranean world

Mike Rapport, BBC History Magazine

One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years... Butterworth has opted to present the anarchists in a mode that emphasises narrative over analysis. The result is a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters. One cannot help wishing there were more extended analysis, however, for when Butterworth does offer broader observations, they are exceptionally astute.

John Gray, New Statesman

One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years...a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters

New Statesman

Sweeping, extensively researched

Leo McKinstry, Express

This is an amazing book full of incredible people all of whom turn out to be real and unbelievable stories, all of which turn out be true... A genuine tour de force

David Aaronovitch

This is an exhilarating gallop through the history of anarchism

Financial Times

This is entertaining stuff

Sunday Times, Christmas Round Up