And with e-book readers and tablets becoming more and more popular, you will also find links – where available – to the electronic version of the mentioned item. All works are in English unless otherwise specified. All ebook links are external.
Gift ideas
NHS 1812/2012 commemorative calendar
The Napoleonic Historical Society is a partner in Operation St Helena, organised by the Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien. They have launched their 1812/2012 bicentenary calendar just in time for the festive season, featuring key dates and artwork depicting the events of the period. The calendar is available for purchase from the society's website and $10 from every copy sold will be donated to the fundraising campaign.
“The Eagle” scarf from Swan Ways
Swan Ways, a partner in the St Helena operation, celebrates the love story between Napoleon and Josephine with “The Eagle” scarf. Inspired by the fashionable French empress' passion for cashmere shawls, “The Eagle”, made in France, brings together a rich tapestry of imperial symbolism, including the golden eagle, laurel wreaths, and the iconic monogrammed 'N'. The scarf is made from 100% silk: further details can be found on Swan Ways' website.
DORMER Tom, DUFF Andrew, SAUNDERS Tim, COOPER Graeme, PETERS Mike & TOOGOOD Frank, The Waterloo Collection: Cavalry Charge – La Haie Sainte & Plancenoit (DVD)
The period from mid-afternoon until early evening on that terrible Sunday was the time, as Wellington described it, of 'hard pounding'. The three programmes on this disc cover the massed French cavalry attacks led by Marshal Ney, the battle fought by the Kings German Legion and the 95th Rifles to hold La Haie Sainte and the adjacent sand pit.
TILLYARD Stella, Tides of War
Tides of War opens in England with the recently married, charmingly unconventional Harriet (Harry) preparing to say goodbye to her husband James as he leaves to join the Duke of Wellington's troops in Spain in the company of his friend, a young pioneering doctor. As the novel moves between war and peace, Spain and London, its large cast of characters includes the serial adulterer and war hero the Duke of Wellington, and the émigrés Nathan Rothschild and Frederic Winsor who will usher in the future, creating a world brightly lit by gaslight where credit and financial speculation rule.
Napoleon & his family
ARIKHA Noga & SIMONETTA, Marcello, Napoleon and the Rebel
Lucien was the most talented of the Bonaparte brothers, who not only can be credited for helping Napoleon seize power, but who also had a promising political career of his own. He was a romantic, an idealist, and an anti-monarchist whose love for Alexandrine, the woman he married in spite of Napoleon's objections, caused him to fall out of favour with his powerful brother. Here, authors Simonetta and Arikha draw from first-hand documents – many previously unseen – allowing them to present a portrait of this remarkable dynasty that reveals Emperor Napoleon and his family at their most intimate and vulnerable moments.
Ebook link
BRANDA Pierre, Napoléon et ses hommes (in French)
The creation of an imperial household – a web of services dedicated entirely to his person – was Napoleon's way of establishing France's new reigning power and reintroducing a Court, similar to those that had previously served the kings of France. Until now, no-one has taken the time to examine in detail the accounts and huge swathes of correspondence relating to the Maison de l'Empereur, from the beginnings of the regime to the miniature Court on the island of Elba, its resurrection during the Cent-Jours, and including its shadowy incarnation on St Helena. Pierre Branda's account brings to life a swarm of characters, in which more well-known figures – such as Duroc and Bertrand – rub shoulders with less-remembered individuals, laundry women and coachmen long forgotten.
Ebook link
FORREST, Alan, Napoleon
In this book, Alan Forrest, tells the remarkable story of how the son of a Corsican attorney became the most powerful man in Europe, a man whose charisma and legacy endured after his lonely death many thousands of miles from the country whose fate had become so entwined with his own. Along the way, Alan Forrest also cuts away the many layers of myth and counter myth that have grown up around Napoleon, a man who mixed history and legend promiscuously and, drawing on original research and his own background in French history, demonstrates that Napoleon was as much a product of his times as their creator.
Empire and exile
DANCOISNE-MARTINEAU Michel, Chroniques de Sainte-Hélène Atlantique Sud (in French)
In October 1815, Napoleon and his companions, accompanied by a British garrison charged with guarding him, landed on a remote and rocky island in the middle of the South Atlantic. The quiet history of this tiny colony was to be changed forever by this unexpected arrival. With the history of Napoleon Bonaparte on St Helena already well-known, Michel Dancoisne-Martineau approaches it from a different angle, and takes a look at the lives of those who were caught up in the episode. This work has been awarded the Fondation Napoléon First Empire history prize for 2011.
Ebook link
FERGUSON Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order (digital audio book)
Ferguson's most revolutionary and popular work, this is a major reinterpretation of the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernising forces. Now available as an audiobook download, this is an abridged version based on the UK Channel Four series. It shows on a vast canvas how the British Empire in the 19th Century spearheaded real globalisation with steampower, telegraphs, guns, engineers, missionaries and millions of settlers.
Digital audio link
NAPOLEON I, LENTZ Thierry (ed.), Mémoires de Napoléon: L'île d'Elbe et les Cent-Jours 1814-1815 (Vol. III) (in French)
This third volume of Napoleon's memoirs rounds off the trilogy, taking in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the emperor's stay on the island of Elba, the Cent-Jours and his triumphal return to Paris, and finishing with the defeat at Waterloo on 18 June, 1815. As the victorious European powers sought to weaken France post-Napoleon, the deposed French emperor, exiled to the island of St Helena, saw it his duty to retell the story of Elba, the Cent-Jours, and Waterloo, in a bid to create “a collective work, written entirely for the glory of France”. Dictating his memoirs from the island in the South Atlantic, this book closes the circle on Napoleon's recollections of his rule. Volumes I and II cover the earlier periods of Napoleon's career.
NAPOLEON I, MADEC Gabriel (ed.), Correspondance générale de Napoléon Bonaparte : volume 8, 1808 – Expansions méridionales et résistances (in French)
Volume eight of The General Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte covers the year 1808 and the following January, 1809. Forming what could be described as the empire's turning point, 1808 lurches from apogee – territorial expansion and the meeting at Erfurt – to decline – the war in Spain, the Continental Blockade's limited application, intensifying Austrian hostility, and the pressing issue of succession. 1808 marks the point of no return and the beginning of a headlong charge towards Cadix and Moscow. From hereon in, the success of the regime would depend on the success of these campaigns. The imperial troops' lack of preparation for the asymmetric nature of the war that awaited them in Spain did not bode well…
MANSEL Philip & RIOTTE Torsten (eds.), Monarchy and Exile: the Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II
Looking at fifteen different royal figures who went into exile, this volume discusses the role of exiled monarchs in domestic politics, in the state system in Europe and in the dynastic networks which transcended national frontiers. This collection of articles features papers on the exile periods of Napoleon and Napoleon III.
The Second Empire
CHAUDUN Nicolas, L'été en enfer, Napoléon III dans la débâcle (in French)
August 1870, the imperial army is defeated, the regime collapses, France is invaded. The sudden collapse of the Second Empire shook the whole of Europe and ushered in one hundred years of unstable decline for France. Nicolas Chaudun presents the reader with an exciting and well-documented dramatised account of the closing days of the Second Empire and Napoleon III's long ordeal, exhausted by illness. This work has been awarded the Fondation Napoléon Second Empire history prize for 2011.
MCQUEEN, Alison, Empress Eugénie and the Arts: Politics and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century
Reconstructing Empress Eugénie's position as a private collector and a public patron of a broad range of media, this study is the first to examine Eugénie (1826–1920), whose patronage of the arts has been overlooked even by her many biographers. This work has been awarded the Fondation Napoléon prize for a book in a language other than French for 2011.
Naval warfare
GARDINER Robert, Warships of the Napoleonic Era: Design, Development and Deployment
Between 1793 and 1815 two decades of unrelenting naval warfare raised the sailing man of war to the zenith of its effectiveness as a weapon of war. Every significant seapower was involved in this conflict, and at some point virtually all of them were arrayed against Great Britain. This book reproduces in extra-large format many of the best (and often least familiar) images of the ships, chosen for their accuracy, detail and sheer visual power. They are backed by text that looks at how the ships were used by the different navies, and explains the functions and development of the seemingly bewildering array of rates and types.
WARWICK Peter, Trafalgar (Tales from the Front Line)
This title offers an insight into the most significant naval battle in history, told through the accounts of those who were actually there. Here you will find original accounts from the great military leaders of the time – including Nelson – as well as the experiences of the ordinary seamen and civilian witnesses. This title is drawn from a variety of contemporary sources including letters, diaries, newspapers and ships' logs.
Military
BLAUFARB Rafe, LIEBESKIND Claudia, Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians: a Brief History with Documents
By highlighting the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, this volume presents a broad view of the Napoleonic Wars not found in typical military histories. The volume comprises an introduction to the key events and significance of the wars and a rich collection of memoirs, letters, and popular engravings from the time.
GLOVER Gareth (ed.), The Waterloo Archive: Volume III: The British Sources
The British archives of the Napoleonic wars are unique, brimming as they are with personal letters to family and friends or journals that record their innermost thoughts. The human aspect of war comes to the fore, the humour and exhilaration; the fears and miseries; the starvation and exhaustion; the horror and the joy. Volume III features poignant final letters, accounts of daily life (including visits to brothels and civilian post-battle descriptions) and military narratives.
MARTIN Brian Joseph, Napoleonic Friendship: military fraternity, intimacy & sexuality in nineteenth-century France
Based on extensive research in French and American archives, and supported by his reading of Napoleonic military memoirs and French military fiction from Hugo and Balzac to Zola and Proust, Brian Joseph Martin's view encompasses a broad range of emotional and erotic relationships in French armies from 1789 to 1916. He argues that the French Revolution's emphasis on military fraternity evolved into an unprecedented sense of camaraderie among soldiers in the armies of Napoleon. For many soldiers, the hardships of combat led to intimate friendships. For some, the homosociality of military life inspired mutual affection, lifelong commitment, and homoerotic desire.
Ebook link
RABB Theodore K., The Artist and the Warrior: Military History through the Eyes of the Masters
How have artists across the millennia responded to warfare? In this wide-ranging book, Theodore Rabb blends military history and the history of art to search for the answers. He draws our attention to masterpieces from the ancient world to the twentieth century – paintings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, engravings, architecture, and photographs – and documents the evolving nature of warfare as artists have perceived it.
Ebook link
SNOW Peter, To War with Wellington: From the Peninsula to Waterloo
What made Arthur Duke of Wellington the military genius who was never defeated in battle? Peter Snow recalls how Wellington evolved from a backward, sensitive schoolboy into the aloof but brilliant commander. He tracks the development of Wellington's leadership and his relationship with the extraordinary band of men he led from Portugal in 1808 to their final destruction of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo seven years.
Ebook link
Myth, legend, and national history
BERGER Stefan & LORENZ Chris, The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories
How did national histories in Europe come into being and which were most successful in underpinning national identities? This volume highlights how ideas and cultural practices travelled across national boundaries, analysing, among other things, the formative influence of religious storylines, the interrelationships between national histories, and the role of writers in the construction of these histories.
KLANICZAY Gábor, WERNER Michael (eds.), Multiple Antiquities – Multiple Modernities: Ancient Histories in Nineteenth Century European Cultures
Antiquity, as the term has been understood and used over the centuries by scholars, political and religious figures, and ordinary citizens, is far from a single, monolithic concept. Rather than reflecting a stable, shared understanding about the past and its meaning, the idea of antiquity is instead varying and multiple, taking on different meanings and deployed to different effects depending on the context in which it is being considered. In this volume, historians from a wide range of specialties offer a comparative assessment of the multiple perceptions of antiquity that have shaped modern European cultures and national identities.
UFFINDELL Andrew, Napoleon's Chicken Marengo
This work tells the story of Chicken Marengo, and cuts through the tangle of myths that has sprung up around it. Supposedly created on the evening of Napoleon's victory at Marengo, the dish rapidly conquered Paris, and became a renowned symbol of French haute cuisine. The author argues that the dish is part of a wider myth that Napoleon spun around the battle itself.
The Crimean War
FIGES Orlando, Crimea: the Last Crusade
The terrible conflict that dominated the mid 19th century, the Crimean War killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land. Figes' recent book reimagines this extraordinary war, in which the stakes could not have been higher and which was fought with a terrible mixture of ferocity and incompetence.
Ebook link
LAMBERT Andrew, The Crimean War
In contrast to every other book about the conflict Andrew Lambert's study is neither an operational history of the armies in the Crimea, nor a study of the diplomacy of the conflict. The core concern is with grand strategy, the development and implementation of national policy and strategy. With a new introduction that contextualises the 1990 text and situates it in the developing historiography of the Crimean War the new edition makes this book available to a new generation of scholars.
SWEETMAN John, Raglan: From the Peninsular to the Crimea
Raglan: From the Peninsular to the Crimea is the first biography of Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, the first Baron Raglan, and the workings of an Army that was failing to keep up with social and technological change. Surprisingly and controversially, Field Marshall Lord Raglan is revealed in this story as a brave, thoughtful, caring and capable man, who found himself an easy target for often personal attacks by critics of an outdated military system.