Publications

Architecture of Instruction and Delight is the outcome of a postgraduate research project at Delft University of Technology performed by the author. It deals with the genesis and development of the nineteenth and twentieth century World Exhibition as a didactic phenomenon. Architecture – and later urbanism – played a key instrumental role in it. Van […]

This account of Napoleon's private life claims to be the best since of Frédéric Masson's Napoléon et les femmes (1904). It details all his liaisons, and also includes studies of his  relations with female family members, notably his mother, and sisters, Elisa and Pauline. Christopher Hibbert is an author of popular history. Other books include: The […]

Sir William Hamilton, celebrated in Napoleonic circles as the cuckolded husband in the Nelson-Emma-Hamilton love triangle, was a man of many parts. After a period as a soldier, and eventually MP he turned his hand to diplomacy and was sent, in  1764, to Naples as Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His […]

Drawing on a multitude of eyewitness accounts, 'Napoleon's men' is an record of the ordinary soldier and his experiences of the campaigns of the Revoultion and the Empire. Reviewed by John Adamson, Peterhouse Cambridge, in The TelegraphAlan Forrest is also author of Conscripts and Deserters: the Army and French Society During the Revolution and Empire, Oxford […]

Although familiar to historians, Melzi is not widely known amongst the general public. This biography places him in the context of the long process of the Risorgimento, which began in the reformist milieux of the 18th century, which matured in the following decades, and which reached its final conclusion with the great events of 1848 and […]

'The Measure of All Things' is the story of the scientific mission, undertaken in 1792, to measure the Earth and define the meter for all nations and for all time. It is based on the correspondance between the two men, their mission log books, and takes as its central point the fact that one of […]

A narrative exploration of the way in which the confident and secure monarchy which Louis XIV bequeathed to his successors in 1715 developed into failed régime toppled by Revolution in 1789, and how the Revolution mutated into its Napoleonic manifestation over the following ten years. Colin Jones' many contention is that France was not doomed […]

The devastating conflict that raged across Spain and Portugal between 1808 and 1814 following Napoleon's invasion was one of the most dramatic and defining moments in Iberian history. At the end of the eighteenth century Spain remained one of the world's most powerful empires. Thanks to a long period of enlightened absolutism, Portugal, too, was prosperous. […]

The French Wars, 1792-1815 is a critical introduction to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic conflicts. It is based on current historiography and discusses the expansion of France, the extent to which Napoleon was responsible for this success, and the events leading up to his exile. It also provides a clear examination of each of the coalitions which […]

This book aims to be the complete Nelson companion, both for the casual reader or for those requiring more detailed information. Includes: entries on people, ships, places and events associated with the man, and extend to contemporary issues like changing interpretations of his actions and motivation. The encyclopedia is arranged alphabetically, fully cross-referenced, every subject […]