This joins together lively autobiographical reflections with reminiscences of some of those Briggs knew over a very long, richly varied, pioneering and successful career as academic historian and university administrator. His quintessential provincialism and global interests and connections are neatly juxtaposed.

The Times Higher Education 28/7/16

Asa has not only had a long life, but also a remarkably rich and useful one, for which many people will be profoundly grateful. In these three volumes we can get some picture of what his life meant for him, his family and his many friends, and with it a comprehensive story of the times in which we live.

The Spokesman

Asa Briggs admits to being a 'bit of a Victorian' and his monumental productivity as scholar, author and doer of good public works would have won him the plaudits of a Prince Albert or a Gladstone. But dip into almost any page of his latest book and you will encounter the warmest and most endearing of high achievers, a cheery polymath equally at ease whether discussing the domestic ephemera of our predecessors with a bunch of students drinking fine wines at Glyndeborne or talking high finance with business moguls and government ministers. Special Relationships is not an autobiography, though the main outlines of Briggs' career and achievements are sketched during the course of its pages. Rather, it is a sequence of engaging recollections and reflections recounted in old age by a man who, it seems, has known everyone of consequence over the past 60 or 70 years and visited almost everywhere on the planet. 'All things connect' says Briggs in a book that reads like the conversation of an enthusiastic drinking companion, moving easily from topic to topic, place to place, friend to friend.

History Today

Special Relationships exudes a larger-than-life bonhomie, recording the sheer enjoyment of a career that has embraced academic administration, educational policy-making and social activism as well as books.

Times Literary Supplement

Writing with warmth, humour and great insight, he considers how places figure as much as people when we recall special relationships.

Bradford Telegraph & Argus

Special Relationships looks back in affection at other areas of Briggs's varied life, from his childhood in Keighley between the wars to his later globe-trotting as an academic historian and educational expert.
What is striking in his autobiography is the breadth of his interests and activities, which include collecting Maoist ceramics. Not for Briggs the chasm between the "two cultures" identified by CP Snow, one of his Cambridge mentors. But despite his multifarious public activities since the war, it is his secret role during the conflict of which he is most proud.

The Guardian

In this highly readable book, Briggs considers the relationships of his life.

Sussex Express