ONE HUNDRED DAYS

ONE HUNDRED DAYS
ISBN-10
0689120974
ISBN-13
9780689120978
Series
One Hundred Days
Category
History (General)
Pages
398
Language
English
Published
1992-09-28
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Authors
Alan Schom, Schom

Description

Europe, 1815: the Great Powers believed that they had at last successfully crushed the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Divested of his empire, exiled to the tiny island of Elba, the ex-conqueror had no army, no money, no ships - nothing but an empty title and his unflagging ambition. But his audacity admitted no defeat. Mustering a minuscule army of a thousand men, with few supplies, he sailed for France and set into motion the events that over the next one hundred days would propel a beleaguered Europe once again into total war, ending with the catastrophic battle of Waterloo, the routing of his Grand Army, and his second - and final - exile.
In One Hundred Days, Alan Schom shows us, in his lively, immediate narrative style, the inevitability of Napoleon's return from exile and his doomed bid for power. Landing unopposed on French soil, the emperor and his skeleton force began their march through a hostile countryside impoverished by years of war, famine, and conscription. Yet the charismatic leader managed to attract men and support: by the time they reached Paris with a force of 20,000, the Bourbon king Louis XVIII had abandoned the city, and Napoleon was greeted with parades and the shouts of citizens eager to align themselves with the stronger power. But war already loomed over his return. The Duke of Wellington and his Grand Allied Army, astonished and alarmed by Napoleon's rise from the ashes of exile, were already on the march and determined to quench him once and for all. The two armies met at Waterloo to fight the bitter three-day contest that would mark the end of Napoleon.
Alan Schom's One Hundred Days is a detailed chronicle of the events that led up to the final fall of Napoleon, and a complex and vivid portrait of the personalities that surrounded him: the icily charming and self-serving Talleyrand; the brutal, fickle police minister Fouche, who helped form the first modern police state; the brave but vacillating Ney; the dogged Davout, the emperor's scapegoat; and Napoleon's underestimated foes, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and the aging yet pugnacious Marshal Blucher. Meticulously reconstructed from diaries, memoirs, and correspondence, a host of lesser characters spring to vivid life, populating the grandiloquent stage of the Napoleonic empire.
More than an account of a watershed event in the evolution of modern Europe, One Hundred Days is a chronicle of an age, replete with intrigue, drama, and consequence. Believing that the epic of history is incomplete without providing the elementary human perspective responsible for shaping it, Alan Schom unveils a story rich in intimate detail: history with a human face and voice.

Other editions

Similar books

  • History of the British Standing Army.
    By Clifford Walton

    Clerk (or) Clark, Esqre.," held the appointment ; he was son to Sir Wm. Clarke, :1 sort of Secretary-at-War, and does not appear to have been bred up to the law. In Ireland the post was held from 1635 to 1637 by W. Clerke, J.C.B., E.

  • Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics
    By Karen M. Paget, Linda Witt, Glenna Matthews

    ... and, judging by the strange new media venues, "Saturday Night Live," "Donahue," and gossip columnist Lany King's radio and television call-in shows on which 1992's Losing 245.

  • Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925
    By Karen A. J. Miller

    His stature within the party leadership would suffer a significant blow at the Cleveland convention . Although both Lodge and Coolidge came from Massachusetts , they represented very different elements in their state's Republican party ...

  • 你一定爱读的极简世界史
    By , 李菲

    (英)玛丽奥特, 李菲. 疆域达到了最大,罗德岛、塞浦路斯和安纳托利亚西南岸上都是他们的地盘。迈锡尼人还将克里特文字变成了一种希腊文,翻译过来的文字显示,迈锡尼人也信仰一些古典希腊的神灵,如海神波塞冬、太阳神阿波罗和主神宙斯。

  • 原始富足
    By 詹姆斯.舒茲曼

    ★ 《人類大歷史》作者哈拉瑞盛讚:「深具啟發、精彩好看!」 ★ 2017年《華盛頓郵報》最佳非虛構類寫作圖書 ★ 2017年美國國家公共廣播平台(NPR)年度好書 ...

  • The American Journey: A History of the United States
    By David R. Goldfield, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, William L. Barney

    Anna J. Cooper , A Voice from the South , 1892 Anna Julia Cooper , A Voice from the South ( Xenia , Ohio : The Aldine Printing House , 1892 ) : 134-135 , 138–140 , 142–145 . The book may be accessed from the Internet ...

  • A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to...
    By Frank Hamilton Cushing

    This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide.

  • The Winning of the West
    By Theodore Roosevelt

    ... inhabitants are greatly Exposd . to the Saviges by whome our wives and Childring are daly Cruily murdered Notwithstanding our most Humble Petitions Canot Obtain Redress- By an other act we are Taxd . which in our 398 APPENDICES .

  • History of American Abolitionism; Its Four Great Epochs, Embracing Narratives of the Ordinance of 1787, Compromise of 1820, Annexation of...
    By F. G. 1832-1896 De Fontaine

    This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

  • The African-American Odyssey: To 1877
    By Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley Harrold

    Supreme Court Justices ( continued ) Name * Years on Court Appointing President John Marshall Harlan William J. Brennan , Jr. Charles E. Whittaker Potter Stewart Byron R. White Arthur J. Goldberg Abe Fortas Thurgood Marshall WARREN E.