The War of 1812 is etched into American memory with the burning of the Capitol and the White House by British forces, The Star-Spangled Banner, and the decisive naval battle of New Orleans. Now a respected British military historian offers an international perspective on the conflict to better gauge its significance. In The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon, Jeremy Black provides a dramatic account of the war framed within a wider political and economic context than most American historians have previously considered. In his examination of events both diplomatic and military, Black especially focuses on the actions of the British, for whom the conflict was, he argues, a mere distraction from the Napoleonic War in Europe. Black describes parallels and contrasts to other military operations throughout the world. He stresses the domestic and international links between politics and military conflict; in particular, he describes how American political unease about a powerful executive and strong army undermined U.S. military efforts. He also offers new insights into the war in the West, amphibious operations, the effects of the British blockade, and how the conflict fit into British global strategy. For those who think the War of 1812 is a closed book, this volume brims with observations and insights that better situate this “American” war on the international stage.

The author maintains that modern attitudes toward total war were conceived during the Napoleonic era; and argues that all the elements of total war were evident including conscription, unconditional surrender, disregard for basic rules of war, mobilization of civilians, and guerrilla warfare.

Tells the story of how America's war fleet, only twenty ships strong, was able to defeat the world's greatest imperial power through a combination of nautical deftness and sheer bravado to win the War of 1812.

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This account of the final years of Britain's long war against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France places the conflict in a new - and wholly modern - perspective. Rory Muir looks beyond the purely military aspects of the struggle to show how the entire British nation played a part in the victory. His book provides a total assessment of how politicians, the press, the crown, civilians, soldiers and commanders together defeated France. Beginning in 1807 when all of continental Europe was under Napoleon's control, the author traces the course of the war throughout the Spanish uprising of 1808, the campaigns of the Duke of Wellington and Sir John Moore in Portugal and Spain, and the crossing of the Pyrenees by the British army, to the invasion of southern France and the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Muir sets Britain's military operations on the Iberian Peninsula within the context of the wider European conflict, and examines how diplomatic, financial, military and political considerations combined to shape policies and priorities. Just as political factors influenced strategic military decisions, Muir contends, fluctuations of the war affected British political decisions. The book is based on a comprehensive investigation of primary and secondary sources, and on a thorough examination of the vast archives left by the Duke of Wellington. Muir offers vivid new insights into the personalities of Canning, Castlereagh, Perceval, Lord Wellesley, Wellington and the Prince Regent, along with fresh information on the financial background of Britain's campaigns. This vigorous narrative account will appeal to general readers and military enthusiasts, as well as to students of early nineteenth-century British politics and military history.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is one of the most illustrated political and military figures of the last two millennia. He has remained in the memory of the world as a legend that the passage of the years has failed to blur. On the contrary, Napoleon Bonaparte widely continues to be considered the personification of human genius. Originally published in this English translation in 1942, leading Russian historian Evgeny Tarle details Napoleon’s military campaign to invade Russia in the early nineteenth century. “The campaign of 1812 was more frankly imperialistic than any other of Napoleon’s wars; it was more directly dictated by the interests of the French upper middle class. The war of 1796-7, the conquest of Egypt in 1798-9, the second Italian campaign, and the recent defeat of the Austrians could still be justified as necessary measures of defence against the interventionists. The Napoleonic press called the Austerlitz campaign ‘self-defence’ against Russia, Austria, and England. The average Frenchman considered even the subjugation of Prussia in 1806-7 no more than a just penalty inflicted on the Prussian court for the arrogant ultimatum sent by Frederick-William III to the ‘peace-loving’ Napoleon, constantly harried by troublesome neighbours. Napoleon never ceased to speak of the fourth conquest of Austria in 1809 as a ‘defensive’ war, provoked by Austrian threats. Only the invasion of Spain and Portugal was passed over in discreet silence. “The War of 1812 was a struggle for survival in the full sense of the word—a defensive struggle against the onslaughts of the imperialist vulture.”—E. V. Tarle

THE AGE OF NAPOLEON is the biography of an enigmatic and legendary personality as well as the portrait of an entire age. J. Christopher Herold tells the fascinating story of the Napoleonic world in all its aspects -- political, cultural, military, commercial, and social. Napoleon"s rise from common origins to enormous political and military power, as well as his ultimate defeat, influenced our modern age in thousands of ways, from the map of Europe to the metric system, from styles of dress and dictators to new conventions of personal behavior.