Best Napoleonic War History Books
Here you will get Best Napoleonic War History Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Plunder: Napoleon's Theft of Veronese's Feast
Author: by Cynthia Saltzman
English
336 pages
0374219036
One of The Christian Science Monitor’s Ten Best Books of May”A highly original work of history … [Saltzman] has written a distinctive study that transcends both art and history and forces us to explore the connections between the two. Roger Lowenstein, The Wall Street JournalA captivatingstudy of Napoleon’s plundering of Europe’s art for the Louvre, told through the story of a Renaissance masterpiece seized from VeniceCynthia Saltzman’s Plunder recounts the fate of Paolo Veronese’s Wedding Feast at Cana, a vast, sublime canvas that the French, under the command of the young Napoleon Bonaparte, tore from a wall of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, on an island in Venice, in 1797.
Painted in 1563 during the Renaissance, the picture was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. Veronese had filled the scene with some 130 figures, lavishing color on the canvas to build the illusion that the viewers’ space opened onto a biblical banquet taking place on a terrace in sixteenth-century Venice.
2. A History of France
Author: by John Julius Norwich
B088M2CGS9
October 2, 2018
English
An engaging, enthusiastic, sympathetic, funny journey through French history from the New York Timesbestselling author of Absolute Monarchs (The Wall Street Journal). Beginning with Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary charactersCharlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette, to name a fewas John Julius Norwich chronicles France’s often violent, always fascinating history.
From the French Revolutionafter which neither France nor the world would be the same againto the storming of the Bastille, from the Vichy regime and the Resistance to the end of the Second World War, A History of France is packed with heroes and villains, battles and rebellionwritten with both an expert command of detail and a lively appreciation for the subject matter by this true master of narrative history (Simon Sebag Montefiore).
3. Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: And Other Small Events That Changed History
Author: by Phil Mason
B004ULMIGY
Skyhorse
October 1, 2009
Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason’s many revelations, you’ll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel.
You’ll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon’s painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield. You’ll learn that an irate blacksmith threw his hammer at a fox and missed, hitting a rock and revealing the largest vein of silver ever discovered, thus changing the finances of Canada forever.
Interestingly, Charlton Heston was cast as Moses in The Ten Commandments because his broken nose made him look like Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of Moses. Finally, no one knows Einstein’s last words. They were in German, a language his nurse did not speak.
4. Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows
Author: by Ruth Scurr
Liveright
English
416 pages
Marking the 200th anniversary of his death, Napoleon is an unprecedented portrait of the emperor told through his engagement with the natural world. How should one envisage this subject? With a great pomp of words, or with simplicity? Charlotte Bront, The Death of Napoleon The most celebrated general in history, Napoleon Bonaparte (17691821) has for centuries attracted eminent male writers.
Since Thomas Carlyle first christened him our last Great Man, regiments of biographers have marched across the same territory, weighing campaigns and conflicts, military tactics and power politics. Yet in all this time, no definitive portrait of Napoleon has endured, and a mere handful of women have written his biographya fact that surely would have pleased him.
With Napoleon, Ruth Scurr, one of our most eloquent and original historians, emphatically rejects the shibboleth of the Great Man theory of history, instead following the dramatic trajectory of Napoleon’s life through gardens, parks, and forests. As Scurr reveals, gardening was the first and last love of Napoleon, offering him a retreat from the manifold frustrations of war and politics.
5. The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History
Author: by Alexander Mikaberidze
Oxford University Press
English
960 pages
Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the places most closely associated with the era of the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous conflict affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England,Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread throughout the world.
In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India,Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditionsto Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century.
6. The Campaigns of Napoleon
Author: by David G. Chandler
Scribner (March 1, 1973)
English
1172 pages
In this engrossing, (The New Yorker) vivid, and intensively researched volume, esteemed Napoleon scholar David Chandler outlines the military strategy that led the famous French emperor to his greatest victoriesand to his ultimate downfall. Napoleonic war was nothing if not complexan ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally minded opponents into that state of disconcerting moral disequilibrium which so often resulted in their catastrophic defeat.
The Campaigns of Napoleon is a masterful analysis and insightful critique of Napoleon’s art of war as he himself developed and perfected it in the major military campaigns of his career. Napoleon disavowed any suggestion that he worked from formula (Je n’ai jamais eu un plan d’oprations), but military historian David Chandler demonstrates this was at best only a half-truth.
To be sure, every operation Napoleon conducted contained unique improvisatory features. But there were from the first to the last certain basic principles of strategic maneuver and battlefield planning that he almost invariably put into practice. To clarify these underlying methods, as well as the style of Napoleon’s fabulous intellect, Chandler examines in detail each campaign mounted and personally conducted by Napoleon, analyzing the strategies employed, revealing wherever possible the probable sources of his subject’s military ideas.
7. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848
Author: by Eric Hobsbawm
Vintage
English
368 pages
This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm’s epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.
8. Napoleon: A Life
Author: by Adam Zamoyski
Basic Books
English
784 pages
The definitive biography of Napoleon – hailed as “magnificent” by The Economist. “What a novel my life has been!” Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by twenty-six, an army general. Seduced by an older woman, his marriage transformed him into a galvanizing military commander.
The Pope crowned him as Emperor of the French when he was only thirty-five. Within a few years, he became the effective master of Europe, his power unparalleled in modern history. His downfall was no less dramatic. The story of Napoleon has been written many times.
In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment, and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him.
Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.
9. Napoleon and His Marshals (Fonthill Complete A.G. Macdonell)
Author: by A. G MacDonell
Fonthill Media
English
224 pages
Napoleon Bonaparte entered the World stage in 1793 at the siege of Toulon. This book covers the period of 1796 to 1815, from Napoleon’s classic victories in Italy up to the point of his defeat at Waterloo. Napoleon created twenty-six Marshals in all and the tapestry of the book is wound around these men, their interpersonal relationships, their successes together, their constant bickering and their eventual failure.
With Marshal jostling with Marshal for power and influence; to say nothing of aggrandizement, it is surprising that Napoleon succeeded to the extent that he did. The book tells the complete story of the Napoleonic Wars, but using the Marshals as the pivot around which the narrative unfolds it presents a different and interesting focus, enabling the reader to see Napoleon from an unusual angle.
The book proceeds chronologically providing a first-class read and a superb account of the Napoleonic Wars. This new edition is illustrated with contemporary portraits and engravings.Although A.G. Macdonell was best known as a journalist and satirist, he was extremely well-educated and had a passion for history, especially the Napoleonic period.
10. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme
Author: by John Keegan
English
368 pages
0140048979
John Keegan’s groundbreaking portrayal of the common soldier in the heat of battle – a masterpiece that explores the physical and mental aspects of warfareThe Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the “point of maximum danger.” Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians.
And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants, whether they were facing the arrow cloud at the battle of Agincourt, the musket balls at Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme.
The Face of Battle is a companion volume to John Keegan’s classic study of the individual soldier, The Mask of Command: together they form a masterpiece of military and human history.
11. Absolute Emperor: Napoleonic Wargame Battles (Osprey Wargames)
Author: by Boyd Bruce
English
64 pages
1472843657
A set of mass battle rules for wargaming in the Napoleonic Wars, allowing players to refight the battles that shaped Europe. From the late Revolutionary Wars and Egyptian campaign, to the battles of Austerlitz, Borodino, Leipzig and Waterloo, Absolute Emperor is a mass battle wargame that provides all the rules needed to play during this period of grand armies and sweeping campaigns.
Players’ armies are composed of multiple corps, with command and control being of the utmost importance, all influenced by the elan of your general. Do you follow in the footsteps of Napoleon and be crowned the Absolute Emperor or stand against tyranny as Wellington and Blcher.
12. Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles
Author: by Bernard Cornwell
B00MMFCEDC
Harper
May 5, 2015
#1 Bestseller in the U.K. From the New York Times bestselling author and master of martial fiction comes the definitive, illustrated history of one of the greatest battles ever foughta riveting nonfiction chronicle published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s last stand.
On June 18, 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras.
The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which it gave its name would become a landmark in European history. In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment, from Napoleon’s daring escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the three battlefields and their aftermath.
13. Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon
Author: by B. H. Liddell Hart
Da Capo Press
English
312 pages
Scipio Africanus (236-183 B.C. Was one of the most exciting and dynamic leaders in history. As commander he never lost a battle. Yet it is his adversary, Hannibal, who has lived on in the public memory, due mostly to his daring march through the Alps with his elephants.
At the Battle of the Ticinus, Hannibal’s initial encounter with Roman arms, young Scipio first tasted warfare, rescuing his dangerously wounded, encircled father, who was also the Roman commander. By nineteen Scipio was the equivalent of a staff colonel and in 210 B.C.
He was placed in supreme command. In three years he destroyed Carthaginian power in Spain and, after being made consul, took his forces to Africa, where he conquered Carthage’s great ally, Syphax. Two years later he clashed with Hannibal himself, annihilating his army in the decisive Battle of Zama.
For this triumph and his other exploits in the Punic Wars, Scipio was awarded the title Africanus. In his fascinating portrait of this extraordinary commander, B.H. Liddell Hart writes, “The age of generalship does not age, and it is because Scipio’s battles are richer in stratagems and ruses – many still feasible today – than those of any other commander in history that they are an unfailing object lesson.” Not only military enthusiasts and historians but all those interested in outstanding men will find this magnificent study absorbing and gripping.
14. Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon
Author: by Rory Muir
B00W1LKWQ8
October 1, 2008
English
This historical study of Napoleonic battles and tactics examines firsthand accounts from soldiers’ memoirs, diaries, and letters: A major work (David Seymour, Military Illustrated). In this illuminating volume, historian Rory Muir explores what actually happened in battle during the Napoleonic Wars, putting special focus on how the participants’ feelings and reactions influenced the outcome.
Looking at the immediate dynamics of combat, Muir sheds new light on how Napoleon’s tactics worked. This analysis is enhanced with vivid accounts of those who were therethe frightened foot soldier, the general in command, the young cavalry officer whose boils made it impossible to ride, and the smartly dressed aide-de-camp, tripped up by his voluminous pantaloons.
Muir considers the interaction of artillery, infantry, and cavalry; the role of the general, subordinate commanders, staff officers, and aides; morale, esprit de corps, soldiers’ attitudes toward death and feelings about the enemy; the plight of the wounded; the difficulty of surrendering; and the way victories were finally decided.
15. Napoleon: A Biography
Author: by Frank McLynn
Arcade (April 27, 2021)
English
768 pages
This acclaimed biography of one history’s great figurescalled “monumental” (Library Journal), “brilliant” (Times, London) and “a rounded and persuasive portrait” (New York Times)is now available in a new edition. Napoleon Bonaparte’s character and achievements have always divided critics and commentators.
In this compelling biography, Frank McLynn has drawn on exhaustive research and the most recent scholarship to throw a brilliant light on this most paradoxical of menas military leader, lover, and emperor. Tracing Napoleon’s extraordinary career, McLynn examines the Promethean legend from his Corsican roots, through the chaotic years of the French Revolution and his extraordinary military triumphs, to the coronation in 1804, his fateful decision in 1812 to add Russia to his seemingly endless conquests, and his ultimate defeat, imprisonment, and death on Saint Helena.
Napoleon the man emerges as an even more fascinating character than previously imagined, and McLynn brilliantly reveals the extent to which he was both existential hero and plaything of Fate; mathematician and mystic; intellectual giant and moral pygmy; Great Man and deeply flawed human being.
