Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain

Robert Harvey has produced a lively biography. The stories of [Cochrane’s] staggering achievements in winning control of both the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts read like the most far-fetched triumphs of Jack Aubrey, or his forerunner, C S Forester’s Hornblower. He was a great man but also a phenomenal egotist, who sacrificed his family and almost everyone else to his restless ambition. — Literary Review, Oct. 2000

Robert Harvey is the latest biographer to be seduced by the comet-like figure of Thomas Cochrane, perhaps the most brilliant commander any navy has ever known…[and] has written a bright and breezy account of Cochrane’s life. — London Evening Standard, Oct. 2, 2000

Truth can be not only stranger but a lot less just than fiction… just wait until you read the true story of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. As Robert Harvey convincingly argues, it is Cochrane’s exploits that gave birth to the fictional genre of Napoleonic sea adventures. — The Independent, Oct. 10, 2000