Book review – French history
The songs my father’s mistress taught me ignited my love of France
When John Julius Norwich was a boy, his father was British ambassador in Paris.School holidays were spent in the exceptionally…
Napoleon’s dazzling victories invited a devastating backlash
On 20 July 1805, just three months before the battle of Trafalgar destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet, the…
A people horrible to behold
The much-lamented journalist and bon viveur Sam White, late of the rue du Bac, The Spectator and the Evening Standard,…
Liberating Marianne
Patrick Marnham unravels some of the powerful, often conflicting myths surrounding the French Resistance
Not-so-evil genius
It is almost inconceivable that there could be a more densely detailed book about Napoleon than this — 800 crowded…
The fear behind the Terror
Why did the French Revolution go so wrong, descending into a frenzied bloodbath in just five years? Because by 1794 all trust had vanished, and the country had literally run out of cash, explains Ruth Scurr
The cardinal and the con artist
You usually know where you are with a book that promises the story ‘would violate the laws of plausibility’ if…
The making of the myth
Writing about Napoleon is a risky business. It exposes the author to the brickbats of the blind worshippers for whom…
