‘Roberts does a superb job of bringing Northcliffe’s story alive. His pages fizz with character and colour. Although Roberts has had extensive access to the Harmsworth family archive, he has no compunction about discussing his subject’s faults.’
Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
How Lord Northcliffe invented the Daily Mail and became a megalomaniac | Culture | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)
‘With an experienced historian’s use of contemporary documents, Roberts makes Northcliffe’s eventful life a panoramic account of his times. … This restrained, scholarly and very readable book.’
Andrew Lycett, The Spectator
Lord Northcliffe’s war of words | The Spectator
‘Reading this energetic and hugely entertaining biography, you are trapped on a carousel in an insane fairground, whizzing round and round inside the head of “the Chief”.
A.N. Wilson, Times Literary Supplement
The Chief by Andrew Roberts | Book review | The TLS (the-tls.co.uk)
‘Having produced magisterial biographies of Churchill and George III, Andrew Roberts is now well established as setting the biographical canon, cutting through forests of black propaganda and myth with a revisionist chainsaw, to reclaim historical characters from distortion and caricature. It is the very essence of what historians are meant to do, but often neglect. In a Western world drowning in a tsunami of lies, in which Churchill and every other British giant are regularly “cancelled”, the Roberts school of historiography becomes even more vital to sustaining civilisation. … This is a conscientious and comprehensive account: the smooth flow of the narrative might make the reader overlook the prodigious amount of research and detail it encompasses. … Thanks to the labours of Andrew Roberts, we have an opportunity to know this driven genius better.’
Gerald Warner, Reaction Life
The Life of Lord Northcliffe and the making of the Daily Mail (reaction.life)
‘Compelling’
Quentin Letts, The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-chief-the-life-of-lord-northcliffe-by-andrew-roberts-review-w39g322th
‘This is a monumental book, which places Northcliffe’s career in the context of the massive social changes and international turmoil of the period. If Roberts occasionally disappears down one of the many sidetracks in this man’s extraordinary life, that is forgiveable.’
Frances Cairncross, Literary Review
‘In books such as Churchill: Walking with Destiny and the unambiguously titled Napoleon the Great, Roberts has shown an abiding keenness for the Great Man theory of history, whereby one individual can shape the lives of millions. Now he makes the same claim for “the Napoleon of Fleet Street”. … You do finish The Chief utterly open-mouthed at all that Northcliffe got done in his 57 years.’
James Walton, Daily Telegraph
How Lord Northcliffe became the ‘Napoleon of Fleet Street’ (telegraph.co.uk)
‘It’s a pacy and enjoyable read.’
Roberts Shrimsley, Financial Times
The Chief — an appraisal of British press baron Lord Northcliffe | Financial Times (ft.com)
‘It is the megalomaniac perception of Northcliffe that Andrew Roberts seeks to rebut in a new and sympathetic biography.’
Nicholas Harris, Unherd
The Lord of the Daily Mail – UnHerd
‘While Roberts captures the enormous strengths of Northcliffe’s convictions, charm and bona fide streak of a genius, he also paints a less flattering portrait of unattractive egotism and obsessions. The book conveys Edwardian England and the anguished, argumentative but honourable and profoundly patriotic wartime years that followed’
Robert Murray, Quadrant Online
The Man Who Made the News – Quadrant Online
‘Keenly researched … The portrait that Roberts paints is largely sympathetic and frequently admiring.’
Andrew Anthony, The Observer Book of the Week
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/07/the-chief-by-andrew-roberts-review-the-original-alpha-mail
‘This intriguing biography … is sympathetic to its subject, [but] Roberts does not gloss over the darker side of Harmsworth’s life and his foibles: his anti-Semitism, his quirky prejudices and his eventual descent into madness.
Kim Bielenberg, The Irish Independent
The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe — The Irishman who gave us the British popular press – Independent.ie