1809 Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon’s Defeat of the Habsburgs, Volume II: Aspern

John H. Gill (Frontline Books)

The second volume of the author’s work on Napoleon’s 1809 campaign, which provides an account of the emperor’s progress as he sought to complete his victory over the Habsburgs, from both the grand strategic and the individual human level.

The Battle of the Alma 1854: First Blood to the Allies in the Crimea

Ian Fletcher & Natalia Ishchenko (Pen & Sword)

A study of the opening encounter of the Crimean War on September 20th 1854, which provides an insight into military thinking and organisation in the 1850s and considers the battle from all perspectives, British, French and Russian.

SUMMARY: Inventing the Nation: France

Timothy Baycroft
Hodder Education

A study of France which examines the nation-building process of continual re-creation and re-invention over more than two centuries and the challenge of creating unity whilst reconciling diversity in a nation profoundly divided since the Revolution.

New book review from our current issue: The French Renaissance Court

Robert J. Knecht
Yale University Press

The court of the Valois monarchs of France reached both its zenith and its nadir in the sixteenth century. In this useful and wide-ranging book, Robert Knechtpresents detailed evidence of the origins and evolution of the Valois court.

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Marie-Thérèse: The Fate of Marie Antoinette’s Daughter, Susan Nagel (Bloomsbury)

A biography of the only surviving child of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, who vanished from public view during the last days of the ancien régime when she was smuggled to Vienna by her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II.