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Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace [Hardcover]
Dominic Lieven (Author)
A major new history of the Russian conflict immortalized by Tolstoy in War and Peace
Russia's expulsion of Napoleon's Grande Armée in 1812 is considered one of the most dramatic events in European history. However, Tolstoyan myth and an imbalance of British and French interpretations have clouded most Westerners' understanding of Russia's role in the defeat of Napoleon.
Based on a fresh examination of Russian military archives, Russia Against Napoleon provides the first-ever history of the period told from the Russian perspective. In Dominic Lieven's account, Russia's victory in 1812 was just the beginning of what would be the longest military campaign in European history, marked by Russia's epic efforts to feed and supply half a million troops as they crossed an entire continent.
Moving from the 1807 treaty signed by Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I through the Russian army's improbable entry into Paris in 1814, Lieven provides suspenseful accounts of events, such as the burning of Moscow and the great battles of Leipzig and Borodino, as well as astute analyses of the great military strategists of the time. The result is a magisterial work sure to be eagerly anticipated by military and history buffs alike.
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Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 [Hardcover]
Charles Esdaile (Author)
No military figure in history has been quite as polarizing as Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he a monster, driven by an endless, ruinous quest for military glory? Or a social and political visionary brought down by petty, reactionary kings of Europe? In the most definitive account to date, respected historian Charles Esdaile argues that the chief motivating factor for Napoleon was his insatiable desire for fame. More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, this volume offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt. Napoleon's Wars seeks to answer the question, What was it that made the countries of Europe fight one another for so long and with such devastating results? Esdaile portrays the European battles as the consequence of rulers who were willing to take the immense risks of either fighting or supporting Napoleon-risks that resulted in the extinction of entire countries. This is history writing equal to its subject-grand and ambitious.
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| Fiction of the Napoleonic Era
Bernard Cornwell - The Sharpe series gives a landsman's view of the
Napoleonic war (along with battle of Trafalgar which can stand with the
best of O'Brian). These books trace the adventures of light
infantryman Richard Sharpe in Portugal, Spain and France 1805-1815.
Patrick O'Brian, Julian Stockwin & other naval -
nautical fiction Susan Sontag - The Volcano Lover |
