Author:Gregor Dallas
The seventeen months from April 1814 to August 1815 were an extraordinary period in European history; a period which saw two sieges of Paris, a complete revision of Europe's political frontiers, an international Congress set up in Vienna, civil war in Italy and international war in Belgium.Gregor Dallas tells the story of these days through the perspectives of three very different European cities: the great metropolis of London, post-revolutionary Paris and baroque Vienna. The writing is almost cinematic in its power to evoke and bring to life the Europe of Tolstoy: the ebb and flow of power, of armies and of peoples across Europe's northern plains. Working essentially from primary sources, Dallas is as interested in the weather conditions before battle as in the way cartoonists reacted to court intrigues and fashions.It is also Europe seen through the eyes of its central players: Talleyrand, who has served nearly every French regime since the Revolution of 1789; Metternich, who devises new plans for a 'Germany' that does not yet exist and for a 'Europe' that remains devided; Wellington, who reveals himself a diplomat as well as a soldier; Tsar Alexander, an idealist seeking to impose a uniform plan for all Europe; and 'Boney' himself, who has his own ideal of Europe and, though banished to Elba, does not abandon his dream to realise it.
Excellent mightily researched and readable. Absorbing through so many pages
—— ScotsmanSplendidly painstaking and enormously readable
—— Arthur Marshall , New StatesmanWith a keen sense of precedence and an admirable grasp of the British peerage system, he darts from duke to duke... racing up and down the genealogies
—— The EconomistMcLynn is an astonishingly prolific historian. His books are always elegantly written, highly opinionated and enormously enjoyable
—— Sunday TimesHas anybody done more – done as much – as Frank McLynn in writing intelligent, combative, thoroughly researched and thoroughly readable history?
—— IndependentThis new biography is of profound importance and will ... quickly establish itself as the standard work on Hitler and his regime
—— Thomas Childers , Boston GlobeReading A. N. Wilson's The Victorians provides ongoing pleasure in handsomely researched, beautifully written prose about an age which we have come to think disparagingly. We thought wrong
—— Clement Freud , Mail on SundayThe Victorians was one of the books that gave me greatest pleasure during the past year... A brilliant evocation of an age
—— Ian McIntyre , The TimesRarely have author and subject been found in such deep and contented harmony... Wilson's tour de force
—— Robert McCrum , ObserverWilson's panoramic survey is the best attempt so far to describe and explain what was happening in that fascinating time
—— Literary ReviewThe Victorians finds Wilson writing at the height of his powers
—— The IndependentI can't recall a history book furnishing so many laughs en route ... The Victorians is a work of scholarship, a labour of love, a persusasive polemic
—— John Sutherland , Mail on Sunday
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