Volume I of The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars covers the international foreign political dimensions of the wars and the social, legal, political and economic structures of the Empire. Leading historians from around the world come together to discuss the different aspects of the origins of the Napoleonic Wars, their international political implications and the concrete ways the Empire was governed. This volume begins by looking at the political context that produced the Napoleonic Wars and setting it within the broader context of eighteenth century great power politics in the Age of Revolution. It considers the administration and governance of the Empire, including with France's client states and the role of the Bonaparte family in the Empire. Further chapters in the volume examine the war aims of the various protagonists and offer an overall assessment of the nature of war in this period.

Volume III of the Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars moves away from the battlefield to explore broader questions of society and culture. Leading scholars from around the globe show how the conflict left its mark on virtually every aspect of society. They reflect on the experience of the soldiers who fought in them, examining such matters as military morale, ideas of honour and masculinity, the treatment of wounds and the fate of prisoners-of-war; and they explore social issues such as the role of civilians, women's experience, trans-border encounters and the roots of armed resistance. They also demonstrates how the experience of war was inextricably linked to empire and the wider world. Individual chapters discuss the depiction of the Wars in literature and the arts and their lasting impact on European culture. The volume concludes by examining the memory of the Wars and their legacy for the nineteenth-century world.

The story of the women, financiers, and other unsung figures who helped to shape the post-Napoleonic global order In 1814, after decades of continental conflict, an alliance of European empires captured Paris and exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, defeating French military expansionism and establishing the Concert of Europe. This new coalition planted the seeds for today's international order, wedding the idea of a durable peace to multilateralism, diplomacy, philanthropy, and rights, and making Europe its center. Glenda Sluga reveals how at the end of the Napoleonic wars, new conceptions of the politics between states were the work not only of European statesmen but also of politically ambitious aristocratic and bourgeois men and women who seized the moment at an extraordinary crossroads in history. In this panoramic book, Sluga reinvents the study of international politics, its limitations, and its potential. She offers multifaceted portraits of the leading statesmen of the age, such as Tsar Alexander, Count Metternich, and Viscount Castlereagh, showing how they operated in the context of social networks often presided over by influential women, even as they entrenched politics as a masculine endeavor. In this history, figures such as Madame de Staël and Countess Dorothea Lieven insist on shaping the political transformations underway, while bankers influence economic developments and their families agitate for Jewish rights. Monumental in scope, this groundbreaking book chronicles the European women and men who embraced the promise of a new kind of politics in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and whose often paradoxical contributions to modern diplomacy and international politics still resonate today.

This three-volume work provides a complete history of the Napoleonic Wars from their origins in eighteenth-century diplomacy to their memory and political legacy. Written by a team of leading historians, it will be essential reading for scholars and students of international diplomacy, war and society and nineteenth-century European history.

The first comprehensive history of the Fall Campaign that determined control of Central Europe following Napoleon's catastrophic defeat in Russia.

Europe was forged out of the ashes of the Napoleonic wars by means of a collective fight against revolutionary terror. The Allied Council created a culture of in- and exclusion, of people that were persecuted and those who were protected, using secret police, black lists, border controls and fortifications, and financed by European capital holders.

After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the leaders of Europe at the Congress of Vienna aimed to establish a new balance of power. The settlement established in 1815 ushered in the emergence of a genuinely European security culture. In this volume, leading historians offer new insights into the military cooperation, ambassadorial conferences, transnational police networks, and international commissions that helped produce stability. They delve into the lives of diplomats, ministers, police officers and bankers, and many others who were concerned with peace and security on and beyond the European continent. This volume is a crucial contribution to the debates on securitisation and security cultures emerging in response to threats to the international order.

“Reads like a novel. A fast-paced page-turner, it has everything: sex, wit, humor, and adventures. But it is an impressively researched and important story.” —David Fromkin, author of Europe’s Last Summer Vienna, 1814 is an evocative and brilliantly researched account of the most audacious and extravagant peace conference in modern European history. With the feared Napoleon Bonaparte presumably defeated and exiled to the small island of Elba, heads of some 216 states gathered in Vienna to begin piecing together the ruins of his toppled empire. Major questions loomed: What would be done with France? How were the newly liberated territories to be divided? What type of restitution would be offered to families of the deceased? But this unprecedented gathering of kings, dignitaries, and diplomatic leaders unfurled a seemingly endless stream of personal vendettas, long-simmering feuds, and romantic entanglements that threatened to undermine the crucial work at hand, even as their hard-fought policy decisions shaped the destiny of Europe and led to the longest sustained peace the continent would ever see. Beyond the diplomatic wrangling, however, the Congress of Vienna served as a backdrop for the most spectacular Vanity Fair of its time. Highlighted by such celebrated figures as the elegant but incredibly vain Prince Metternich of Austria, the unflappable and devious Prince Talleyrand of France, and the volatile Tsar Alexander of Russia, as well as appearances by Ludwig van Beethoven and Emilia Bigottini, the sheer star power of the Vienna congress outshone nearly everything else in the public eye. An early incarnation of the cult of celebrity, the congress devolved into a series of debauched parties that continually delayed the progress of peace, until word arrived that Napoleon had escaped, abruptly halting the revelry and shrouding the continent in panic once again. Vienna, 1814 beautifully illuminates the intricate social and political intrigue of this history-defining congress–a glorified party that seemingly valued frivolity over substance but nonetheless managed to drastically reconfigure Europe’s balance of power and usher in the modern age.

Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the places most closely associated with the era of the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous conflict affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread throughout the world. In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. In Egypt, the wars led to the rise of Mehmed Ali and the emergence of a powerful state; in North America, the period transformed and enlarged the newly established United States; and in South America, the Spanish colonial empire witnessed the start of national-liberation movements that ultimately ended imperial control. Skillfully narrated and deeply researched, here at last is the global history of the period, one that expands our view of the Napoleonic Wars and their role in laying the foundations of the modern world.

First Published in 1966. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.