The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo [FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Dallas, Gregor

Edité par Helry Holt and Company / A Marian Wood Book, New York, 1997

A propos de cet article

Fine condition gold boards, black spine, and gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color illustrated dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by Gregor Dallas; Preface; Appendix A: Maps; Appendix B: The Major States and Provinces of Europe 1814-1815; Appendix C: Chronology; Notes; Bibliography; Illustration Credits and Index. Illustrated with black-and-white drawings and black-and-white illustrated front and rear endpapers. "A delight to read because it is so engagingly well written and so informative . Much of the book revolves around the Congress, where statesmen danced and philandered and hammered out the shape of Europe for the next hundred years. All the wheeling and dealing is described with compelling lucidity and liveliness ." -- Alistair Horne, Literary Review. "A splendid tour de force ." - Elizabeth Longford. "The great strength of Dallas's narrative is its concern . with the detailed reconstruction of the social and cultural world of the European elites in 1815 . The cumulative effect of all this pointillisted detail is powerful, conveying a vivid sense of the intellectual and imaginative world within which post-Napoleonic Europe was defined." -- John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph. "Some of the descriptive set pieces are magnificent. It would be difficult to find as good an account of the sheer brutality of Waterloo, where 40,000 men and 10,000 horses lost their lives . The personalities of all the key players are brilliantly drawn and many historical stereotypes shattered in the process . This book is proof that any history -- even diplomatic history -- can be enjoyable and entertaining as well as instructive. Those dry-as-dust studies of the Congress of Vienna will never be the same again." -- Marianne Elliott, The Sunday Times. "1814-1815: Europe embraces an uneasy peace. The fires of revolution have been banked, the ardor of Napoleonic expansion dimmed. But memory keeps fear alive. Despite mutual antagonisms, the ruling powers know they must restore the "natural order" or risk repeating the past. And so they agree to convene a great congress of nations in Vienna. Its goal: to insure the peace of Europe. Its hidden agenda: to secure advantage, fix disputed boundaries, eliminate republicanism. No diplomatic event in history had so stellar a cast as the Congress of Vienna: Tsar Alexander, with his mystical visions, his chimerical moods. Talleyrand, cunning and duplicitous, who would act as a victor though he represented a defeated nation. Castlereagh, alone in His Majesty's government to understand the necessity for a Concert of Europe, who single-handedly built Britain's foreign corps and who would end a suicide. Wellington, the Iron Duke, who would go on to underwrite the diplomatic decisions with military victory. And Metternich, the force jajeure, seemingly everywhere at once, trading, entreating, finagling in his unremitting attack on the forces of liberalism. Along with a supporting cast of rogues and mistresses, clairvoyants and spies, they turned Vienna into a theater of intrigue that shaped the face of Europe for a century to come. And hovering over it all, the brooding presence of the man who was not there: Napoleon Bonaparte, whose shadow was the force that drove them to find common ground. He would confirm their worst fears, breaking free of exile to challenge them on the plains of Waterloo. The Final Act is narrative history rich in color and detail, filled with events both petty and momentous and with players whose names are legend. Here is a sometimes exquisite, sometimes comic minuet in which national borders shift with the same ease with which plenipotentiaries change bed partners, and alliances agreed upon at dinner crumble in the light of dawn. As Gregor Dallas partners the reader through this dance of nations, he never loses sight of what lay at stake: the fate of Europe itself" -- from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.

N° de réf. du vendeur 007117

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo [FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]
• Éditeur: Helry Holt and Company / A Marian Wood Book, New York
• Date de parution: 1997
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 1st Printing
• État de l'article: Fine
• État de la jaquette: Fine