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Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815

(Paperback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815

Contributors:

By (Author) Roger Knight

ISBN:

9780141038940

Publisher:

Penguin Books Ltd

Imprint:

Penguin Books Ltd

Publication Date:

27th August 2014

UK Publication Date:

26th June 2014

Country:

United Kingdom

Classifications

Readership:

General

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Early modern warfare (including gunpowder warfare)
European history

Dewey:

940.27

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

720

Dimensions:

Width 127mm, Height 198mm, Spine 33mm

Weight:

524g

Description

For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe. How did Britain survive and eventually win a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak commanded many times the resources From Roger Knight, established by the multi-award winning The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and eventually won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower This book looks beyond the familiar exploits (and bravery) of the army and navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It shows the degree to which, because of the magnitude and intensity of hostilities, the capacities of the whole British population were involved- industrialists, farmers, shipbuilders, gunsmiths and gunpowder manufacturers. The intelligence war was also central; but no participants were more important, Knight argues, than the bankers and international traders of the City of London, without whom the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. ROGER KNIGHT was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory- the life and achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late eighteenth-century British state. 'Superb' - Spectator

Reviews

A wonderfully disorienting read ... for [Knight] the real heroes of the struggle against Napoleon are not Wellington or Nelson or Collingwood or Cochrane but the clerks and administrators and 'silent men of business' who put Britain's armies in the field and kept her ships at sea and her allies in funds and ultimately won the war ... there is scarcely a wasted sentence here, not a duff page, not a chapter ... that does not bring you very close to the realities of a total war -- David Crane * Spectator *

Author Bio

Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. The Pursuit of Victory- The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelsonwon the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research.

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