Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 [Hardcover]

Charles Esdaile (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2008

A magisterial account of the wars that engulfed Europe during the rise and fall of Napoleon.

No military figure in history has been quite as polarizing as Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he a monster, driven by an endless, ruinous quest for military glory? Or a social and political visionary brought down by petty, reactionary kings of Europe? In the definitive account to date, respected historian Charles Esdaile argues that the chief motivating factor for Napoleon was his insatiable desire for fame. More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, this volume offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt. Napoleon’s Wars seeks to answer the question, What was it that made the countries of Europe fight one another for so long and with such devastating results? Esdaile portrays the European battles as the consequence of rulers who were willing to take the immense risks of either fighting or supporting Napoleon—risks that resulted in the extinction of entire countries. This is history writing equal to its subject—grand and ambitious—that will join Viking’s impressive backlist of European history titles, such as Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory and Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Historians of Napoléon Bonaparte must assess his role in causing the wars named after him. Esdaile assigns heavy responsibility to the first consul and self-crowned emperor yet declines to analyze the period in exclusively personal terms. Rather, he develops the intersection between Napoléon’s militaristic proclivities and the international relations on which he dreamed of hammering his name into history. Much of Esdaile’s narrative recounts conflicting agendas of the European powers and dwells particularly on suspicions of Britain by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In degrees, these powers all pursued their traditional foreign objectives, sparking several wars entirely unrelated to France’s territorial expansion. In consequence, France, spurred by its leader’s lack of political restraint and thirst for conquest, was able to war advantageously against one or two powers at a time until the formation in 1813–15 of the alliance that finally defeated Napoléon. Recapturing the flux of international diplomacy and Napoléon’s congenital rejection of compromise, Esdaile persuasively places the diplomatic foundation to popular military histories about the Napoleonic wars. --Gilbert Taylor

Review

“Deft, authoritative, often strikingly counter-intuitive, this is the definitive word on the subject.”
--Telegraph (London)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st edition (November 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670020303
• ISBN-13: 978-0670020300
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #735,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Competent and Well Organised, May 26, 2009

By 

Two Tone "timafc" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 (Hardcover)

Having read various biographies of Napoleon, including this one, I think some of the negative reviewers perhaps need to go back and look at this book again.

Firstly, this is a book primarily concerned with Napoleon's diplomatic and political relations, rather than his military or administrative achievements (which were many and significant)and even French authors (eg Roger Caratini) have been critical of his approach in this field. Esdaile simply makes the point that there were a number of occasions when Napoleon could have had peace on favourable terms but failed to do so, which doesn't seem that controversial to me.

Secondly, I think Esdaile gives a fairly balanced portrayal of why Britain was perceived as an unreliable ally and doesn't seek to gloss over their tendency to pick off lucrative colonies as opposed to anything else.

Thirdly, he certainly doesn't over emphasise Britain's role compared with that of other players, such as Russia, in Napoleon's ultimate defeat - to me, one of the very strengths of this book is putting the British contribution in its proper context and not over-focusing on it. But Napoleon wouldn't have put so much effort into the Continental System if he hadn't himself recognised the importance of Britain's consistent opposition, so I don't think this is simply a case of 'pipe smoking British historians' smugly congratulating themselves as one reviewer seems to think.

My big takeaway from this book (which is one of at least half a dozen that I've read on this subject) is that even after the Russian debacle, Napoleon could have had peace on terms that anyone else would have considered generous but rejected; in the end, it wasn't really the actions of Britain, Russia or anyone else but ultimately his own that caused his downfall.

Maybe that's the lesson that his admirers find hard to accept - a man of genius in many areas undone by his own ego.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excessively biased, but good Political and diplomatic narrative., February 25, 2011

By 

Gurbax Shergill - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 (Paperback)

Before reading Napoleon's Wars, most of my reading of the era was about military affairs. So this was a great find for me, and has given me insight into what was going on in the courts of Europe, the motives of different nations, diplomatic exchanges etc. Esdaile fleshes out in detail, the different interests of each nation, and the reason for their involvement. I have to give him praise for this. That's where the praise ends.

I simply don't understand how any respected historian could admit that certain primary sources are unreliable(Talleyrand, Fouche), yet repeatedly use them to support his random and unrealistic claims! I feel bad for all the beginners who will read this, they will forever be brainwashed by this otherwise fine historian.

"Napoleon was habitually destructive", or "Napoleon was bent on total domination" shows up once every 10 pages. Some of his unreasonable opinions have even seeped into my head. I think the worst part was when he essentially blamed the break down of the Treaty of Amiens on the French, when from the very beginning, Britain violated it's terms to start.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, although Anglophilic, February 23, 2009

By 

W. Frederick Zimmerman "W. Frederick Zimmerman" (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 (Hardcover)

This is the best single-volume history of the Napoleonic wars that I have ever read. It is full of casually brilliant essays in which Esdaile uses just a few pages to explains complicated phenomena that have detained other authors for multiple volumes (the Peninsular War, the War of 1812). It is truly an international, and a global history, that gives sufficient weight to the Americas, North and South, and addresses the actions of every major and minor European power.

I do think it is a shade overly Anglophilic. Esdaile reports Continental skepticism about English motives dutifully, but without, perhaps, complete belief. And his treatment of the appalling English "press gangs" against American sailors is tame considering the complete illegality and injustice of the practice-reminiscent of a later era's "superpower" defense of extraordinary detention.