Press reviews

With a key period in the history of the Peninsular War coming up, The Creative Assembly and Sega have announced an expansion pack for Napoleon: Total War, which deals with the conflict in Spain and Portugal.   Titled, unsurprisingly, “The Peninsular Campaign”, the pack is scheduled for release this summer.   Click here for a […]

After eight years spent editing the French History journal, Malcolm Crook, Professor of French History at Keele University (UK), has bidden his farewells. Specialist in modern French history, author of Napoleon Comes to Power 1795-1804 and currently working on “How the French Learned to Vote: The Culture of Elections in France since 1789”, Professor Crook has […]

The “Take Three” section in the University of Cambridge's Alumni magazine, CAM, offers three brief commentaries on the importance of a government's first 100 days. Of particular interest are Robert Tombs' thoughts on the Cent-Jours, and the similarities between Napoleon's and Sarkozy's individual approaches to governing.   Click here for the latest issue of CAM […]

First Empire n° 113   In this issue:   “Napoleon's Short-Lived Naval Victory, by Peter Friedman, p4“Wellington's Mules”, by RJ Tennant, p7“General Count Rapp Saved Emperor Napoleon's Life – Thrice!”, by Blaine Taylor, p21“The Introduction of Light Infantry In The British Army”, by Raymond P. Cusick, p25Napoleonic Newsdesk, by Paul Chamberlain, p33“Armistice of Cherasco”, by […]

Book reviews:Rousseau's Daughters: Domesticity, Education, and Autonomy in France by Jennifer J. Popiel, reviewed by Colin Heywood, pp. 293-294   Visualizing the Revolution: Politics and the Pictorial Arts in Late Eighteenth-century France, by Rolf Reichardt and Hubertus Kohle, reviwed by Joseph Clarke, pp. 295-296   La Révolution: 1789-1871: Ecriture d'une Histoire Immédiate, edited by Philippe […]

The Independent and the BBC News website (both UK) have follow-up articles on the sale at auction in New Zealand of a lock of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair, which eventually went for US$13,000 (£8,600/10,490 €). Click here for the Independent article and here for the BBC article (both external links).

The Fitzwilliam Museum website (Cambridge, UK) features a number of online exhibitions, one of which, “The view from France”, takes a look at French impressions of what it was to be English. The online exhibition includes a number of caricatures, the majority of which dates from the period 1814-1815, a time when the English were […]

The forty million Euro restoration project for the Waterloo Memorial and the Lion's Hamlet is apparently back on after languishing in administrative and financial limbo for a number of years. The minister in charge of tourism for the Wallon region, Paul Furlan, confirmed during the Waterloo re-enactment weekend (18 – 20 June) that the project […]

Back in April we featured an article from The Guardian (UK) written by Niall Ferguson, in which he decried the quality of history teaching at GCSE and A Level standard. The British government has just recently expressed interest in the Harvard professor's propositions to overhaul the history curriculum. The Guardian article (generally considered to be slightly left […]

The Institute of Historical Research (UK) this week offers up a double-book review by Jan Golinski from the University of New Hampshire. The books in question are Industrial Enlightenment: Science, Technology and Culture in Birmingham and the West Midlands 1760-1820, by Peter M. Hones, and The Derby Philosophers: Science and CUlture in British Urban Society, […]