Wellington Pocket Giants

Download or read book Wellington: pocket GIANTS written by Gary Sheffield and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2017-07-17 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wellington is a giant because he was one of the greatest military commanders in British history, an important figure in the emergence of Britain as a great imperial power, a man who dominated British society and politics for 35 years. He was the only one of Napoleon's contemporaries who can be mentioned in the same breath as a general - a master of logistics, politics and coalition warfare as well as strategy, operations and tactics. The book's focus is on Wellington's military career, and it looks at all of these aspects, placing them in the context of the military and political developments of the time. It explores Wellington's personality – a key to understanding his success - and briefly examines his post-Waterloo career as a politician. It concludes that Wellington was not only a military genius, but an icon whose fame endures to our own time.

Download or read book Horatio Nelson: pocket GIANTS written by Peter Warwick and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is Nelson a hero? Because he was a captain before he was 21, a man who shaped the course of history from the decks of his ships, hailed as a saviour of the nation, a hero killed in action at the moment of his greatest victory at the Battle of Trafalgar and immortalized ever since. What lies beneath the romantic legend of Horatio Nelson? What did he do before he became famous? Why did he fall from grace twice? Did he really put a telescope to his blind eye? Why did Victory's signal lieutenant change his 'England expects . . . .' signal at Trafalgar? What made his leadership special? This book traces Nelson's spectacular and often controversial career from a Norfolk parson's son who entered the Royal Navy at the age of twelve, through his youth as a difficult and ambitious naval subordinate, his rise to admiral and celebrity, his fighting career and his outstanding victories at the battles of the Nile, Copenhagen and ultimately Trafalgar.

Download or read book Brunel: pocket GIANTS written by Eugene Byrne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a BBC poll in 2002, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was voted the second-greatest Briton of all time, only eclipsed by Churchill. It's often claimed that that through his ships, bridges, tunnels and railways Brunel played a critical role in creating the modern world. In the soaring ambitions of the Victorian age, nobody thought bigger than Brunel. Never tied to a dusty office, he crammed enough work, adventure and danger into a single year to last a lesser person a lifetime. He was also a brilliant showman, a flamboyant personality and charmer who time and again succeeded in convincing investors to finance schemes which seemed impossible. Brunel made plenty of mistakes, some of them ruinously expensive. But he also designed and built several structures which are still with us to this day. For these we have to thank a man who was famously described as 'in love with the impossible'.

Download or read book Napoleon Bonaparte: pocket GIANTS written by William Doyle and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the space of less than twenty years, Napoleon turned Europe upside down. Rising from obscure origins to supreme power by a mixture of luck, audacity and military genius, he was able to harness the energies released by the French Revolution to resolve the internal problems which it had created, before turning his restless ambition to remodeling the political structure of the whole continent in a series of brilliant military victories. He was never able to finally subdue all his foreign enemies, and in the end they came together to bring him down; but by then it was impossible to restore what he had destroyed, or, in France, to destroy much of what he had created. The memory of his epic exploits, carefully refashioned during his last years in exile, haunted Europe for over a century, while the more distant effects of his career changed the whole destiny of the Americas and of the world.

Download or read book Fall of Giants written by Ken Follett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 1010 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . .

Download or read book Henry V: pocket GIANTS written by A. J. Pollard and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry V is the best-known military hero in English history: better known than Marlborough or Wellington, or his grandfather, Edward III. He enjoyed more success against the French than any of them, coming tantalisingly close to conquering that vast country and imposing an English dynasty; this in a reign of just nine years, in only seven of which he was at war. Even before he died the heroic myth, later enshrined by Shakespeare, was being created. His victories have become the touchstone of English nationalism, English militarism and English imperialism. For good or ill, Henry V now signifies the one-time ‘Greatness of England’. He was a military genius, yet his megalomania was not always in the best interests of his own kingdom, let alone the people of France who suffered at his hands. Behind the carefully constructed nationalist myth was a cold, calculating, ruthless ruler who, before his early death, revealed ominous tyrannical tendencies.

Download or read book Waterloo 1815 written by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most decisive battles in military history, Waterloo saw the culmination of a generation of war to bring a definitive end to French hegemony and imperial ambitions in Europe. Both sides fought bitterly and Wellington later remarked that 'it was the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life'. In this bloody engagement, more than 20,000 men were lost on the battlefield that day by each side, but it was the Anglo-Allies who emerged victorious. Their forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the throne, while Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he later died. Waterloo was a resounding victory for the British Army and Allied forces, and it changed the course of European history. In this concise yet detailed account, historian Gregory Fremont-Barnes tells you everything you need to know about this critical battle.