Crisp, clear and quietly devastating ... It might indeed be questioned whether such a project is worth doing while the outcome is so uncertain. But O'Rourke's book provides a bracing and absorbing answer. As he puts it towards the end, Brexit has already been "a hugely informative, if costly, civics lesson for the people of Britain, Ireland, and the rest of Europe" and he is superbly well fitted to draw out that lesson for the general reader.—Fintan O'Toole, Guardian

The 2016 referendum already feels so long ago that it is hard to remember that a longer story was erased and forgotten amid the fevered claims of £350m, 80m Turks and the 'easiest' deal in history. Kevin O'Rourke painstakingly lays out the facts in A Short History of Brexit—Christopher Kissane, Financial Times

A Short History of Brexit couldn't have come at a better time ... an excellent and authoritative exploration of the roads to Brexit, one that is erudite, rigorous and highly readable—Tony Connelly, Irish Times

Anyone who has found themselves newly politicised by the convulsions of British politics in general or Brexit in particular will find this a handy primer on the events and undercurrents that led to our present discontent. Anyone who is familiar with that history will find something they knew, but hadn't fully appreciated.—Stephen Bush, Observer