Ambrogio A. Caiani— On the night of 5 July 1809 French forces kidnapped Barnabà Chiaramonti, Pope Pius VII, from his private apartments in the Quirinal Palace in Rome. He would spend the following five years as a prisoner of Napoleon. Ultimately, the Pope refused to renounce his central Italian kingdom,
George Prochnik— What’s life without glory, blazing love affairs, and apple tarts? That’s to say, what is life without song and true liberation for all? Heinrich Heine at thirteen, diminutive and dashing with wavy chestnut hair and a passion for play, charged into the crowd beneath the linden trees of
Rory Muir— The Duke of Wellington felt far from triumphant after defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, famously remarking that “I don’t know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one’s friends.” A few
Those interested in European history will find much to please them in Rory Muir‘s masterful biography of one of the most famous figures in British history, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769-1814. Arguably the greatest of all British generals, the Duke of Wellington went on to be a leading figure
A Happy Bastille Day to one and all! France’s national holiday is a day for celebrating its people as a collective force to be reckoned with. Specifically, it remembers those who came together to storm the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789. More generally, however, it celebrates the forging
Ivan Lett The nickname l’homme de décembre was given to Napoléon III, largely, it seems, for living in the shadow of his uncle Napoléon I, Emperor of the French. On December 2, 1804, Napoléon I was crowned emperor, changing the political landscape of not only Europe, but the emerging interconnected
A few weeks ago, we celebrated Columbus Day and the discovery of America. Or at least he made the physical discovery, and even that is contested. What other Americas were there to discover? One might say: the political discovery of the American Republic’s early successes. Alexis de Tocqueville and his
Writing for the New York Sun, John Merriman reviewed Philip Dwyer’s Napoleon: The Path to Power, finding it “an excellent history and a very good read.” He says that many sections were not only “compelling,” but also finds them pertinent to current militaristic and political events. Read the entire review