Napoleon Europe

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.

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.

David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility that Napoleon represented. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

The Age of Napoleon, the 11th and final volume of the Story of Civilization, surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the age of democracy. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter the French Revolution from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the king; and the revolution's leaders - Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, and Saint-Just - all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated.

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the 20th century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and leading planner of the "Final Solution," Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany.

The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states.

Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC) 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 public memory. As B. H. Liddell Hart writes, "Scipio's battles are richer in stratagems and ruses - many still feasible today - than those of any other commander in history." Any military enthusiast or historian will find this to be an absorbing, gripping portrait.

Josephine's life story was as turbulent as the age, an era of revolution and social upheaval, of the guillotine and of frenzied hedonism. With telling psychological depth and compelling literary grace, Carolly Erickson brings the complex, charming, ever resilient Josephine to life in this memorable portrait, one that carries the reader from the sensual richness of her childhood in the tropics to her final lonely days at Malmaison.

No one in history has provoked more controversy than Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he an enlightened ruler or brutal tyrant? Was he an insatiable warmonger or a defender of France against the aggression of the other great powers? Was he kind or cruel, farsighted or blinkered, a sophisticate or a philistine, a builder or a destroyer? One thing is certain, if the art of leadership is about getting what one wants, then Napoleon was among history's greatest masters.

Centuries on, what the Reformation was and what it accomplished remain deeply contentious. Peter Marshall's sweeping new history argues that 16th-century England was a society neither desperate for nor allergic to change, but one open to ideas of "reform" in various competing guises. This engaging history reveals what was really at stake in the overthrow of Catholic culture and the reshaping of the English Church.

The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811-1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales - the future King George IV - replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain's ruler. Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner.

Jim Weiss guides listeners on a journey to encounter the fascinating people, high ideals, and bloody battles of the French Revolution and Napoleon's empire. Enter the whirlwind of the French Revolution and follow Napoleon's relentless march of conquest. From the burning desert sands of Egypt and the frozen plains of Russia to the lush jungles of Haiti and the sweeping prairies of North America, Jim Weiss guides listeners through the story of a tumultuous worldwide struggle for liberty.

Il est arrivé le 15 mai 1779 à l'École royale militaire de Brienne. Il n'a pas encore dix ans et parle à peine le français... Il va rester cinq ans dans cette école, sans la quitter un seul jour, sans revoir sa famille. Vingt ans plus tard, cet enfant sera le général Napoléon, maître de cette France ou il n'a d'abord été qu'un étranger. Quel caractère, quelle volonté, quel courage, quelle énergie, quelle imagination, quelle démesure, quelle puissance de rêve, quel sens des situations, quel génie il a fallu à l'enfant arraché à son milieu pour devenir le héros d'une nation !

D'Ajaccio à Sainte-Hélène, en passant par le Grand-Saint-Bernard, Austerlitz, Moscou, Waterloo, l'île d'Elbe, André Castelot a mis ses pas dans ceux de Napoléon Bonaparte pour respirer et restituer le décor de son prodigieux destin. Exploitant et mettant en valeur, avec son art célèbre du récit qui visualise les événements, les lieux et les personnages, une immense masse d'archives, de mémoires et de correspondance parfois inédits ou oubliés, il a écrit cette monumentale biographie si vivante, si colorée, si passionnante que depuis trente ans, son public se renouvelle sans cesse.

In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the church with the state. But while they were able to work together initially, formalizing an agreement in 1801, relations between them rapidly deteriorated. In 1809, Napoleon ordered the Pope's arrest. Ambrogio Caiani provides a pioneering account of the tempestuous relationship between the emperor and his most unyielding opponent.

D'Ajaccio à Sainte-Hélène, en passant par le Grand-Saint-Bernard, Austerlitz, Moscou, Waterloo, l'île d'Elbe, André Castelot a mis ses pas dans ceux de Napoléon Bonaparte pour respirer et restituer le décor de son prodigieux destin. Exploitant et mettant en valeur, avec son art célèbre du récit qui visualise les événements, les lieux et les personnages, une immense masse d'archives, de mémoires et de correspondance parfois inédits ou oubliés, il a écrit cette monumentale biographie si vivante, si colorée, si passionnante que depuis trente ans, son public se renouvelle sans cesse.

Richard J. Evans's gripping narrative ranges across a century of social and national conflicts, from the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to the unification of both Germany and Italy, from the Russo-Turkish wars to the Balkan upheavals that brought this era of relative peace and growing prosperity to an end. The first single-volume history of the century, this comprehensive and sweeping account gives the listener a magnificently human picture of Europe in the age when it dominated the rest of the globe.

Napoléon a trente ans en ce mois de noembre 1799. Il est Premier consul. Dans cinq ans, il sera Empereur des Français. "Joseph, si notre père nous voyait", murmurera-t-il à son frère aîné lors du sacre. Un an encore et il s'écriera : "Soldats, je suis content de vous !" Voilà la course légendaire. À la suivre jour après jour, on mesure la tension, la lucidité, la volonté, l'énergie, le génie, qu'il a fallu à Napoléon pour franchir les obstacles. Cadoudal le royaliste veut le tuer. L'Angleterre, l'Autriche, la Russie veulent l'abattre. Il faut l'emporter, sinon tout s'effondre.

Il est Napoléon le Grand : après Austerlitz, qui peut arrêter l'Empereur des Français ? Il bouscule les Rois, à Iéna, à Friedland, à Wagram. Il conquiert les femmes. Marie Walewska, la Polonaise, et Marie-Louise, l'Autrichienne, la petite-nièce de Marie-Antoinette ! Son fils, le Roi de Rome, descend donc de l'Empereur d'Autriche. Quel parcours ! Napoléon, que nous suivons pas à pas, s'humanise. Amant impérieux de Marie Walewska et mari attentionné de Marie-Louise, il voudrait retenir l'histoire, ne pas avoir à engager le fer contre le Tsar. Mais il est emporté : "Et ainsi la guerre aura lieu malgré moi, malgré lui", confie-t-il.

Paul Johnson's book is a refreshing return to a concept whose time has come once again: the Great Man theory of biography. It serves as "the greatest possible refutation of those who hold that events are governed by forces, classes, economics, and geography rather than the powerful wills of men and women". Napoleon truly was the Great Man of his age, a towering and terrible genius who managed to conquer the Continent.