"In her wildly ambitious new book, Deborah Cohen spins a kaleidoscopic epic out of the oft-told story of the rise of Fascism in Europe and the fall of empires in Asia. Drawing on the letters and diaries of a tight-knit troupe of American foreign correspondents, nearly all of them celebrities in their time, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial provides a timely and often uncanny mirror for our present moment of national reckoning." (Deborah Baker, author of In Extremis and A Blue Hand)

"The rise of Fascism, the spread of Communism, the Second World War, and the end of European empires: Last Call at the Hotel Imperial delivers a fresh, fast-paced history of the 20th-century’s most defining events through the eyes of the foreign correspondents who dashed off to cover them. It is also a captivating group biography of five unforgettable figures, whose tumultuous romances, ambitions, achievements and bereavements Deborah Cohen animates with extraordinary candor and compassion. Written with a style, insight and attention to detail its subjects would have envied, Last Call is a riveting narrative that unites public and private affairs with rare fluency and power." (Maya Jasanoff, author of The Dawn Watch)

"The celebrated journalists of the lost generation were voracious, reckless, promiscuous, funny and drunk, and they were also shrewd and deeply political. They explained the world to Americans, shaping their thoughts on fascism and empire, racism and sex.... As intimate and gripping as a novel, I read it all at once; I couldn't stop - this brilliant book vividly conveys what it felt like to live through the shocking crises of the thirties and forties as they were happening, when nearly anything could happen next." (Larissa MacFarquhar, authors of Strangers Drowning)