The History Book Club discussion

I must admit to having very basic knowledge of Napoleon and that era, however 2 or 3 years ago I read Adam Zamoyski's book '1812' which I found to be an enjoyable read and very informative. His book 'Rites of Peace' is still on my to be read pile.

I will enjoy reading through this thread to discover other books on Napoleon. Can anyone recommend a book which will give a good over view and account of the Napoleonic period rather than just concentrating on one battle or Campaign.

Thanks Karen


by Adam Zamoyski

by Adam Zamoyski

Hi Karen, both very good books. It's hard to think of one good book that covers the whole period, most books are on either Napoleon or like you mentioned a specific campaign. One book that covers most of the period, 1805-1815, that I found to be an excellent account is; "La Grande Armee" by Georges Blond. I will have a dig around in my library a bit later on and see if I can come up with another suggestion or two.

by Georges Blond

I have a copy of this book but have not read it yet although the author's book on the War in Spain was quite good:

by Charles J. Esdaile

Thank you Aussie Rick for your recommendations. I have ordered the Georges Blond book and will let you know how I get on when it arrives.

byGeorges Blond

Hi Karen, I really hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think :)

Thank you Aussie Rick. But you did mention the author once again, therefore message 50 needs an author citation.

Michael Adams (no photo available)

This is a chronology of the Battle of the Nile which ended in disaster for Napoleon's navy. Well done history with the extra added attraction of photos by a modern dive team visiting the wreck of three of Napoleon' ships which lie undisturbed at the bottom of Aboukir Bay

by Laura Foreman(no photo)



August 1, 1798; Thirteen French ships sit anchored in Aboukir Bay off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, in support of Napoleon, now ashore with the bulk of his troops. Nighttime approaches;and so do the British.Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson has for months been hunting Napoleon at sea; now, upon his command, the English fleet opens fire on the surprised and trapped enemy. By battle's end, nearly all of the French ships are sunk or captured, and the 120-gun flagship Orient;the pride of the French navy;has exploded. With 1,700 of his men dead, Bonaparte's ability to dominate the region is crushed. Nelson becomes a hero throughout all of Britain.

This is a spirited chronicle of Lord Nelson's pursuit of Napoleon as the French general set out to capture Egypt. Gifted storytellers Laura Foreman and Ellen Blue Phillips bring this great age of naval warfare to life as they recount the greed, audacity, bravery, and bloodshed that made up this, the Battle of the Nile. With equal parts bold narrative and historical accuracy, the authors show Bonaparte and Nelson as complex and brilliant militarists destined to lead their countries to glory. That Nelson prevailed in Egypt was testament to his impudence, his highly maneuverable ships;and considerable good fortune. Despite an ill-equipped, undermanned, and financially strapped navy, Napoleon had assembled a formidable armada of 13 battleships, 300 transport vessels, and 38,000 men. His plan to conquer Egypt;which started off with a treasure-raiding stop at Malta along the way;might well have succeeded if the pursuing Nelson had not followed a hunch about Bonaparte's destination.

Following this riveting account of the chase, the battle, and the aftermath, the book takes readers far beneath Aboukir Bay with French underwater explorer Franck Goddio and his team as they dive at the site of the Orient and two other sunken French ships, the Serieuse and the Artemise. There they uncover and salvage exotic coins, artillery, personal artifacts, and other finds that speak eloquently of life at sea and at war in the late eighteenth century.Lavishly illustrated with more than 200 extraordinary full-color photographs, expedition images, portraits, scenic paintings, and battle maps, Napoleon's Lost Fleet joins military history with cutting-edge marine archaeology to captivate all lovers of discovery.

An upcoming book:
Release date: September 1, 2014

Napoleon: The End of Glory

by Munro Price (no photo)

Synopsis:

On April 20, 1814, after a dizzying series of battles, campaigns, and diplomatic intrigues, a defeated Napoleon Bonaparte made his farewell speech to the Old Guard in the courtyard of the Chateau de Fontainebleau and set off for exile on the island of Elba. Napoleonic legend asserts that the Emperor was brought down by foreign powers determined to destroy him and discredit his achievements, with the aid of highly placed domestic traitors. Others argue that once Napoleon's military defeats began in 1812, his fall became inevitable. But in fact, as Munro Price shows in this brilliant new book, Napoleon's fall could have been avoided altogether.

Exploring a critical and often neglected period of Napoleonic history between 1812 and 1814, Napoleon: The End of Glory offers a more complete picture of the Emperor's decline and fall than any previous work. Price analyzes the political, military, and diplomatic events of the period, from Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 to the multiple failed attempts by Austria to broker peace. He illuminates the dynamic relationships between Napoleon and the wily Austrian foreign minister Metternich-whose desire for equilibrium within the European states system clashed with Napoleon's unshakeable belief in hegemony and subjection-and the charming and enigmatic Alexander I of Russia. And he explores the lasting impact of the bloody Terror of the French Revolution on Napoleon's decisions once he came to power.
Rejecting the assumption that defeat was unavoidable, Price considers instead why Napoleon failed to explore a compromise peace that could have allowed him to keep his crown, arguing that the answer to this question has powerful implications for our understanding of the Napoleonic wars.

Ultimately, Price provides a convincing portrait of the Emperor's decline, exposing his blindness, intransigence and miscalculations; his preference for war and his declining ability to wage it; and his nearly pathological fear of a dishonorable peace. A deeply researched study of the moment of a great man's fall, Napoleon: The End of Glory forces us to reconsider Napoleon's character, motives, and the reasons for his spectacular failure.

Thanks Jerome

Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East

by Juan Cole (no photo)

Synopsis:

In this vivid and timely history, Juan Cole tells the story of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. Revealing the young general's reasons for leading the expedition against Egypt in 1798 and showcasing his fascinating views of the Orient, Cole delves into the psychology of the military titan and his entourage. He paints a multi-faceted portrait of the daily travails of the soldiers in Napoleon's army, including how they imagined Egypt, how their expectations differed from what they found, and how they grappled with military challenges in a foreign land. Cole ultimately reveals how Napoleon's invasion, the first modern attempt to invade the Arab world, invented and crystallized the rhetoric of liberal imperialism.

This author doesn't think that Napoleon was the great general that history portrays. An interesting approach to his victories and defeats.

Blundering to Glory: Napoleon's Military Campaigns

by Owen Connelly (no photo)

Synopsis:

Renowned for its accuracy, brevity, and readability, this book has long been the gold standard of concise histories of the Napoleonic Wars. Now in an updated and revised edition, it is unique in its portrayal of one of the world's great generals as a scrambler who never had a plan, strategic or tactical, that did not break down or change of necessity in the field. Distinguished historian Owen Connelly argues that Napoleon was the master of the broken play, so confident of his ability to improvise, cover his own mistakes, and capitalize on those of the enemy that he repeatedly plunged his armies into uncertain, seemingly desperate situations, only to emerge victorious as he "blundered" to glory. Beginning with a sketch of Napoleon's early life, the book progresses to his command of artillery at Toulon and the "whiff of grapeshot" in Paris that netted him control of the Army of Italy, where his incredible performance catapulted him to fame. The author vividly traces Napoleon's campaigns as a general of the French Revolution and emperor of the French, knowledgeably analyzing each battle's successes and failures. The author depicts Napoleon's "art of war" as a system of engaging the enemy, waiting for him to make a mistake, improvising a plan on the spot-and winning. Far from detracting from Bonaparte's reputation, his blunders rather made him a great general, a "natural" who depended on his intuition and ability to read battlefields and his enemy to win. Exploring this neglected aspect of Napoleon's battlefield genius, Connelly at the same time offers stirring and complete accounts of all the Napoleonic campaigns.

Waterloo: Napoleon, Wellington, and the Battle That Changed Europe

by Jack Steinberg (no photo)

Synopsis:

Napoleon Bonaparte and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, were both born in the same year, one in occupied Corsica and the other as a member of the Protestant Ascendency in Ireland. Though they had very different childhoods, the frustrations they encountered at school shaped the ways in which they approached difficulty.

Both would go on to illustrious military careers, with Wellesley making a name for himself in the British colony of India and Napoleon becoming the emperor of France. Britain and France had been experiencing conflict for some time before the start of Napoleon’s rule, but now everything came to a head.

The Napoleonic Wars brought Wellesley and Napoleon into conflict with each other, and eventually, they collided during the Waterloo Campaign. This campaign culminated in the Battle of Waterloo, which would come to be regarded as one of the bloodiest—but also one of the most important—battles in history.

After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he went into exile on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic. Wellesley returned home and involved himself in the British government, helping to shape a Europe that had already been made new by the force of Napoleon’s legacy.

I was thinking about reading this book so I may go ahead.

Betsy wrote: "I was thinking about reading this book so I may go ahead."

If you do, please stop back by and let us know what you think of it.

I did go ahead and read it. It's good as an introduction and has some interesting conclusions by the author.

I just finished this book which, although not very long, covers the Battle of Waterloo. My only complaint is that there are no maps to give the reader an opportunity to see the battlefield and the troop movements.

The Battle of Waterloo

by Jeremy Black

Synopsis:

The name Waterloo has become synonymous with final, crushing defeat. Now this legendary battle is re-created in a groundbreaking book by an eminent British military historian making his major American debut. Revealing how and why Napoleon fell in Belgium in June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo definitively clears away the fog that has, over time, obscured the truth.

With fresh details and interpretations, Jeremy Black places Waterloo within the context of the warfare of the period, showing that Napoleon’s modern army was beaten by Britain and Prussia with techniques as old as those of antiquity, including close-quarter combat. Here are the fateful early stages, from Napoleon’s strategy of surprise attack—perhaps spoiled by the defection of one of his own commanders—to his younger brother’s wasteful efforts assaulting the farm called Hougoumont. And here is the endgame, including Commander Michel Ney’s botched cavalry charge against the Anglo-Dutch line and the solid British resistance against a series of French cavalry strikes, with Napoleon “repeating defeat and reinforcing failure.”

More than a masterly guide to an armed conflict, The Battle of Waterloo is a brilliant portrait of the men who fought it: Napoleon, the bold emperor who had bullied other rulers and worn down his own army with too many wars, and the steadfast Duke of Wellington, who used superior firepower and a flexible generalship in his march to victory.

This may be of interest to members of this group; I have the two volume 'History of the Wars' by Christopher Kelly esq. published in 1817. It starts with the French revolution and and covers the entire Napoleonic era up to and including the battle of Waterloo. It's an incredible work, with hand drawn and coloured maps of the various battles and engravings of various figures who featured. It was passed down to me via my great-great-great grandfather Major Jonathan White who formed the Robin Hood Rifles in Nottingham, in 1859. Also of interest perhaps is that his wife's father - my G-G-G-G grandfather, was a drummer boy at the battle of Waterloo.

I think the book is quite rare, here's one link to a description of it: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record...

I think for any Waterloo scholars it is a 'must read'.

What an interesting post Hud. Thank you very much for that information and you must be so proud of your ancestry.

We do not allow links in the way that you did because then the citations cannot be populated by the powerful goodreads software or listed here and captured in the listing on the right in the whitespace which also by the way is populated throughout the site.
We are also not trying to self promote any publishing site and I realize that you are not doing that so I will let that go - the site you linked to does provide more of a descriptor. But in the future just add the citations with the bookcover, the word by, the author's photo when available and the author's link. If the author's photo is not available simply add (no photo) at the end of the citation.

Here is the example and you will now see on the right hand side if you click more that both the book is under the list of books for the thread and has been now captured and memorialized and the same goes for the author.

by Christopher Kelly (no photo)