| How important are the 'great men' of history compared to their subjects and fellow-citizens? What is the relation between military victory and political success? These are the questions addressed in this first volume of a magisterial new history of the Napoleonic Wars. Clear, lively and comprehensible, it draws on hitherto untapped archive sources to reveal the manoeuvrings of Austria, Prussia, Russia and France and their effect on ordinary citizens in the vast conflict that shaped modern Europe. |