Changes

In the spring of 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated. Having overseen an empire spanning half the European continent and governed the lives of some eighty million people, he suddenly found himself exiled to Elba, less than a hundred square miles of territory. Braude dramatizes this strange exile and improbable escape in granular detail and with novelistic relish, offering sharp new insights into a largely overlooked moment. He details a terrific cast of secondary characters, including Napoleon’s tragically-noble official British minder on Elba, Neil Campbell, forever disgraced for having let “Boney” slip away; and his young second wife, Marie Louise who was twenty-two to Napoleon’s forty-four, at the time of his abdication. What emerges is a surprising new perspective on one of history’s most consequential figures, which both subverts and celebrates his legendary persona.

The Battle of Waterloo has cast a long shadow over Europe. It ended the French Empire and Napoleon's aspirations and it significantly altered the direction of Europe. Unsurprisingly, the meaning and significance of Waterloo are different for all of the countries that participated in the battle. Alan Forrest walks through the reader through the battle but explores the consequences and the interpretations of Waterloo. Forrest answers how we remember Waterloo. Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all view Waterloo through different a lens.

*[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306811375/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0306811375&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=41aca4dfc5abd2cbc65d9376ad404b37 The End of the Old Order (Vol.1)] by Frederick Kagan

Frederick Kagan, a distinguished historian and military policy expert, has tapped hitherto unused archival materials from Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, to present the history of these years from the balanced perspective of all of the major players of Europe. In The End of the Old Order readers encounter the rulers, ministers, citizens, and subjects of Europe in all of their political and military activity-from the desk of the prime minister to the pen of the ambassador, from the map of the general to the rifle of the soldier.

*[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1906509417/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1906509417&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=d13f5675f147ea9609eb4ec2a40fe332 The Great Retreat: Napoleon's Grand Armée in Russia] by Alexander Korolev

The Great Retreat is an unprecedented, visually rich account of Napoleon’s march back from Moscow, built on a remarkable discovery of newly unearthed artifacts and archival sources. It tells the story of how Napoleon lost nearly 400,000 men to the brutal cold, poor planning, and effectively destructive harrying of the Russian army at his heels. Featuring more than 1,600 illustrations and detailed biographies of all 289 regiments and units involved in the retreat, supplemented by unforgettable eyewitness accounts, this book brings Napoleon’s retreat, and its unfathomable human cost, to life in a wholly new way. No student of Napoleon or fan of military or Russian history will want to miss it.

* <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZVEJWHM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00ZVEJWHM&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=e6bd0316e8eda7c55a14bf9e2fefa5d1 The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain]</i> by John Lawrence Tone