Christopher Hibbert
Список книг автора Christopher HibbertWellington: A Personal History
A bestseller in hardback, this is a highly-praised and much-needed biography of the first Duke of Wellington, concentrating on the personal life of the victor of Waterloo, and based on the fruits of modern research. Christopher Hibbert is Britain’s leading popular historian.Wellington (1769–1852) achieved fame as a soldier fighting the Mahratta in India. His later brilliant generalship fighting the French in Spain and his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo earned him a dukedom and the award of Apsley House (No. 1, London) and a large estate in Hampshire.His second career saw him make his mark as a politician with commanding presence. Appointed Commander-in-Chief for life, he became Prime Minister in 1827 and presided over the emancipation of Roman Catholics and the formation of the country’s first police force.Privately, he was unhappily married, and had several mistresses (including two of Napoleon’s) and many intimate friendships with women. The private side of the public man has never been so richly delineated as in this masterly biography.
Napoleon: His Wives and Women
A masterly biography of Napoleon, concentrating on his private life, by the historian described by Stella Tillyard as ‘a master portraitist of great men’s private lives’ and by Amanda Foreman as ‘one of England’s greatest living historical writers’.Modern history has produced one single myth on a heroic scale to rival those of Alexander and Caesar – that of Napoleon. The continuing fascination of this astonishingly gifted man is reflected in the number of books published each year on various aspects of the Napoleonic legend: some 250,000 volumes in all since Napoleon’s mysterious death in 1821.What is still needed is now provided by Christopher Hibbert: an authoritative up-to-date account of Napoleon’s private life at all stages of his developing and extraordinary career, based on the fruits of modern research, his character, interests and tastes, his friendships, enmities and love affairs, his relations with the members of his remarkable family, the impressions he made on his contemporaries away from the council chamber and the battlefield, his personal life at war, in exile and as emperor in peacetime, the mystery surrounding his death: in short, the man revealed behind the soldier, statesman and legend.
