Publications

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is considered by many to have been one of the greatest writers on war. His study On War was described by the American strategic thinker Bernard Brodie as “not simply the greatest, but the only great book about war.” It is hard to disagree. Even though he wrote his only major […]

Napoleon was a breaker of worlds. He made and remade most of the European continent almost at will, for well over a decade. Much of our world was forged as a consequence of his actions. Ever since we have taken our revenge – whether as scholars, novelists, politicians or private citizens – by making, unmaking […]

The history of the Russian campaign is well known; from the crossing from Niemen to Borodino to the charred rubble of Moscow, and the terrible journey to Berezina. But the experiences, the daily life and the sufferings of the men who wrote down their testimonies and were lucky enough to survive it can hardly be […]

It is safe to say that selling sex constituted a significant, and visible, part of urban culture in Georgian England. Alongside the rise of the 'polite society' of Jane Austen's novels, the city of London, so described in 1758, had long been portrayed as a centre of vice and debauchery. In the shadows of the […]

From the PublishersThe roots of modern commerce and the origins of economics are usually traced to Adam Smith and his alleged celebration of free trade. Questioning this conventional story, Anoush Fraser Terjanian uncovers ambivalence towards commerce in eighteenth-century France. Through careful analysis of the Enlightenment's best-selling history of comparative empires, the History of the Two […]

 From the publishersBroadsides explores the political and cultural history of the Navy during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through contemporary caricature. This was a period of intense naval activity – encompassing the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence, the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the War of 1812.Naval caricatures […]

 From the Publishers Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington lives on in popular memory as the 'Invincible General', loved by his men, admired by his peers, formidable to his opponents. This […] book revises such a portrait, offering an accurate – and controversial – new analysis of Wellington's remarkable military career. Unlike his adversary Napoleon, Wellington […]

 From the publishersWith his monumental work The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) – best known for his classic Democracy in America — envisioned a multivolume philosophic study of the origins of modern France that would examine the implications of French history on the nature and development of democratic society. Volume 1, […]

 From the publishersA colourful British general, Robert Wilson (1777-1849) was knighted many times over by crowned heads, but never by his own monarch. Described by Wellington as 'a very slippery fellow', he fought in the Peninsular and Napoleonic wars, and his published account of the Egyptian campaign resulted in Napoleon complaining to the British government […]

 From the publishers:A nation's history is littered with conveniently forgotten defeats and military disasters but it is unusual for significant victories to be ignored. Richard Hopton takes a look at the long overlooked defeat of Napoleon's forces by General Sir John Stuart at Maida, southern Italy, in 1806. For many years the only hint that […]