Napoleonic Wars

A highly original and critical introduction to the revolutionary and napoleonic conflicts. It illuminates the less well-known areas of the subject, such as the changing atttitude of the French people towards Napoleon, as well as providing a balanced account of the campaigns of Wellington and Napoleon.Based on current historiography, this book discusses the expansion of France, the extent to which Napoleon was responsible for this success, and the events leading up to his subsequent exile. It also provides a clear examination of each of the coalitions which fought against France.

A relatively unexamined aspect of the career of the Duke of Wellington--his command of allied forces occupying France--serves as the focus of this work. Veve traces the history of the 1815-1818 occupation and the significant role that Wellington played in making the first multinational peacekeeping force a success. He explores the decisions made and procedures established by the Duke, and demonstrates that Wellington's command was not simply the final chapter in a successful military career, but rather an important transition to his future political endeavors.

Albert Nofi has used his many years of research to produce an account of the battle of Waterloo that has all the grandeur and military detail one could want, but which never loses its interest in individual human experience. Here Napoleon rides forward to take personal command of a small detachment of French Marines to fight his way across the Sambre river on the way to Waterloo. Hanoverian exiles who have been fighting Napoleon for a decade under English command are surrounded and wiped out in a classic "last stand" at the hour of victory.

The Waterloo Campaign also covers the death of the Duke of Brunswick, the reconciliation of Napoleon and his estranged brother Jerome in the crucible of battle, and the tragic loss and miraculous delivery of many ordinary people.

Special features of The Waterloo Campaign include the most complete orders of battle available for the British, French and Prussian armies, a detailed comparison of artillery and musketry capabilities, sidebars profiling many of the personalities of the campaign, weather conditions for each hour of the battle and the best-informed estimates available on unit strengths and casualties, for horses as well as humans, during the campaign.

Most historians of Britain now take for granted that a narrow and mostly landed elite managed to retain its social supremacy throughout much of the nineteenth century. But as yet, there is no throrough explanation for the persistence of the old elite's political authority in an age when that authority was seriously questioned by many Britons. In this original study, Philip Harling furnishes an important part of this explanation. He argues that the mostly Pittite governing elite helped to allay the suspicions of parasitism at the root of the familiar critique of 'Old Corruption' by responding to intense pressure to sanitize government.

Between the restoration of Charles II and the battle of Waterloo, England gradually emerged as the core nation of the most formidable superpower the world had yet seen. This lively, up-to-date, and comprehensive overview explores the cultural, social, and economic motivations of the people behind this remarkable transformation, during which England lost her American colonies but gained an Empire.

This is the most up-to-date, concise, yet comprehensive narrative history of France, current through the end of 1999. Engagingly written for students and general public, it brings to life the compelling history of this fractious and fascinating country, which has given to the world cultural glory and a model of democratic revolution. No longer a nation of peasants or small shopkeepers, France has weathered the storms of the first half of the 20th century to emerge as the fourth largest economic power in the industrial world. At the turn of the 21st century French society is in dynamic flux, shaped by integration, feminism, youth culture, and economic and social change. Each chapter of this work covers a distinct period of French history, from prehistory to France at the end of the 20th century, examining the problems and issues of that era and how they impacted later events.