Difference between revisions of "Top Ten Books on Napoleon Bonaparte"
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| − | Napoleon: A Concise Biography | + | * Napoleon: A Concise Biography |
by David A. Bell | by David A. Bell | ||
| − | Napoleon: The Path to Power | + | * Napoleon: The Path to Power |
Philip Dwyer | Philip Dwyer | ||
| − | Napoleon | + | * Napoleon |
by Adam Zamoyski | by Adam Zamoyski | ||
| − | The Campaigns of Napoleon | + | * The Campaigns of Napoleon |
by David G Chandler | by David G Chandler | ||
| − | With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign | + | * With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign |
by John H Gill | by John H Gill | ||
| − | Napoleon: A Life | + | * Napoleon: A Life |
by Andrew Roberts | by Andrew Roberts | ||
| − | The Invisible Emperor: | + | * The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba From Exile to Escape |
| − | By | + | By Mark Braude |
| − | Waterloo | + | 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. |
| + | |||
| + | *''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199663254/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0199663254&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=62ba70bf374992b31bc6e0e9309d306a Waterloo]'' (Oxford University Press) | ||
by Alan Forrest | by Alan Forrest | ||
| − | The End of the Old Order | + | 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. |
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | *The End of the Old Order | ||
by Frederick Kagan | by Frederick Kagan | ||
| − | The Great Retreat: | + | *The Great Retreat: Napoleon's Grand Armée in Russia |
| − | by | + | |
| + | 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>The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain</i> | ||
| + | |||
| + | By John Lawrence Tone | ||
| + | |||
| + | John Tone recounts the dramatic story of how, between 1808 and 1814, Spanish peasants created and sustained the world's first guerrilla insurgency movement, thereby playing a major role in Napoleon's defeat in the Peninsula War. Focusing on the army of Francisco Mina, Tone offers new insights into the origins, motives, and successes of these first guerrilla forces by interpreting the conflict from the long-ignored perspective of the guerrillas themselves. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Only months after Napoleon's invasion in 1807, Spain seemed ready to fall: its rulers were in prison or in exile, its armies were in complete disarray, and Madrid had been occupied. However, the Spanish people themselves, particularly the peasants of Navarre, proved unexpectedly resilient. In response to impending defeat, they formed makeshift governing juntas, raised new armies, and initiated a new kind of people's war of national liberation that came to be known as guerrilla warfare. Key to the peasants' success, says Tone, was the fact that they possessed both the material means and the motives to resist. The guerrillas were neither bandits nor selfless patriots but landowning peasants who fought to protect the old regime in Navarre and their established position within it. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Bonus Book: | ||
Talleyrand | Talleyrand | ||
by Duff Cooper | by Duff Cooper | ||
Revision as of 16:55, 6 November 2019
- Napoleon: A Concise Biography
by David A. Bell
- Napoleon: The Path to Power
Philip Dwyer
- Napoleon
by Adam Zamoyski
- The Campaigns of Napoleon
by David G Chandler
- With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign
by John H Gill
- Napoleon: A Life
by Andrew Roberts
- The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba From Exile to Escape
By Mark Braude
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.
- Waterloo (Oxford University Press)
by Alan Forrest
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.
- The End of the Old Order
by Frederick Kagan
- 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.
- The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain
By John Lawrence Tone
John Tone recounts the dramatic story of how, between 1808 and 1814, Spanish peasants created and sustained the world's first guerrilla insurgency movement, thereby playing a major role in Napoleon's defeat in the Peninsula War. Focusing on the army of Francisco Mina, Tone offers new insights into the origins, motives, and successes of these first guerrilla forces by interpreting the conflict from the long-ignored perspective of the guerrillas themselves.
Only months after Napoleon's invasion in 1807, Spain seemed ready to fall: its rulers were in prison or in exile, its armies were in complete disarray, and Madrid had been occupied. However, the Spanish people themselves, particularly the peasants of Navarre, proved unexpectedly resilient. In response to impending defeat, they formed makeshift governing juntas, raised new armies, and initiated a new kind of people's war of national liberation that came to be known as guerrilla warfare. Key to the peasants' success, says Tone, was the fact that they possessed both the material means and the motives to resist. The guerrillas were neither bandits nor selfless patriots but landowning peasants who fought to protect the old regime in Navarre and their established position within it.
Bonus Book:
Talleyrand
by Duff Cooper
