Alan Palmer
His Empire For Some Horses
1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow
By Adam Zamoyski
HarperCollins 644pp £25 order from our bookshop
The Age of Napoleon
By Alistair Home
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 192pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
Two HUNDRED YEARS ago this May, General Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French. The bicentenary is the first in a succession of anniversaries of – Napoleonic triumphs to fall over the next eight years: the Notre Dame coronation on 2 December; ‘the sun of Austerlitz’, twelve months later to the day; the battles of Jena, Friedland and Wagram; the Habsburg marriage, and the birth of a King of Rome. Then, at midsummer 2012, will come the anniversary of Napoleon’s greatest display of (ultimately ineffective) military might, the massing of half a million men to pursue a phantom victory in the East. It is this ‘fatal march on Moscow’ that Adam Zamoyski describes so vividly in 1812.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'This book takes in a lot of territory, all solidly researched and footnoted. But dry? Fuhgeddaboutit.'
Patricia T O'Conner on E J White's 'You Talkin' To Me? The Unruly History of New York English'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/tawk-of-the-town
'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
Candia McWilliam on @lachlangoudie's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10