“Mr. Marozzi tells the story in all its richness, variety and horror. The result is a monumental revisionist work that will alter views on slavery inside and outside the Islamic world. An absorbing book."

– The Wall Street Journal

“In Captives and Companions, Justin Marozzi traces the stories of the eunuchs, harem women, and forced laborers who underwrote empires in Asia and North Africa. Captives and Companions is an engrossing read, and Marozzi deserves credit for lighting up a vast subject with vivid tales that throw Atlantic slavery sharply into relief."

– Thomas Meaney, The New York Times Book Review

"A powerful and important book. A masterly and thoughtful study of human cruelty and endurance."

– Gerard Russell, Financial Times

"An elegant and ambitious synthesis, serving up a scintillating compendium of lives. Gliding through the ages, Marozzi's prose recalls an older tradition of history writing - the effortless fluidity of a John Julius Norwich of Jan Morris. Reading him, one thinks of Tintoretto: vast canvases, mannered style, high drama, narrative drive."

– Pratinav Anil, The Times (London)

"A scrupulously fair, fearless and detailed history."

– Christopher Hart, The Daily Mail

"Superb. A remarkably humane work, written in urbane and polished prose."

– Bartle Bull, Literary Review

"The long history of slavery—far from America’s shores. Journalist Marozzi regrets that Islamic scholars have largely ignored the subject of slavery. In his detailed history, he emphasizes that neither the Bible nor the Koran objects to the institution. [An] expert history."

– Kirkus Reviews

“An elegant and ambitious synthesis, serving up a scintillating compendium. Marozzi’s prose recalls an older tradition of history writing—the effortless fluidity of a John Julius Norwich or Jan Morris. Reading him, one thinks of Tintoretto: vast canvases, mannered style, high drama, narrative drive.”

– The Times (London), a Book of the Week

"Parts of Justin Marozzi’s Captives and Companions are hard to read and that’s as it should be. We are obsessed with the Atlantic traffic but the mass trade carried on in the Islamic world, sanctioned by the faith, gets far less attention. This book is a necessary corrective."

– Evening Standard, a "Book of the Week"

 "An unsentimental unveiling of a subject that has long been shrouded in scholarly purdah...An elegant and ambitious synthesis, serving up a scintillating compendium of lives. Gliding through the ages, Marozzi's prose recalls an older tradition of history writing - the effortless fluidity of a John Julius Norwich of Jan Morris. Reading him one thinks of Tintoretto: vast canvases, mannered style, high drama, narrative drive."

– Pratinav Anil, Lecturer in History at the University of Oxford