Alistair Horne

Although war was never formally declared, the Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused six French governments to fall, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, brought De Gaulle back to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture. The war made headlines around the world, and at the time it seemed like a French affair: Now, this brutal and intractable conflict looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one--a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that is now ravaging Iraq, and in which religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism assume previously unimagined degrees of intensity.

Algeria, 1954-1962

A Savage War of Peace

Traces the development of Paris from the twelfth century to the mid-twentieth century, identifying seven key periods in the city's history, from the medieval and Renaissance ages, through revolutionary and Napoleonic Paris, to the German occupation during World War II and its liberation. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

Seven Ages of Paris

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 is the second book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany. The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity. 'Verdun was the bloodiest battle in history ... The Price of Glory is the essential book on the subject' Sunday Times 'It has almost every merit ... Horne sorts out complicating issues with the greatest clarity. He has a splendid gift for depicting individuals' A.J.P. Taylor, Observer 'A masterpiece' The New York Times 'Compellingly told ... Alastair Horne uses contemporary accounts from both sides to build up a picture of heroism, mistakes, even farce' Sunday Telegraph 'Brilliantly written ... very readable; almost like a historical novel - except that it is true' Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

Verdun 1916

The Price of Glory

"A dramatic, colorful, stylishly-written history, Hubris is a much-needed reflection on war from a master of his field,"--Amazon.com.

Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than fifty years. In this wise and masterly work, he revisits six battles that changed the course of the twentieth century to reveal the one trait that links them all: hubris. In Greek tragedy, hubris is excessive human pride that challenges the gods and ultimately leads to the total destruction of the offender. From the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, to Hitler's 1941 bid to capture Moscow, to MacArthur's disastrous advance in Korea, to the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu, Horne shows how each of these battles was won or lost due to excessive hubris on one side or the other. In a sweeping narrative written with his trademark erudition and wit, Horne provides a meticulously detailed analysis of the ground maneuvers employed by the opposing armies in each battle, and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to show how devastating combinations of human ambition and arrogance led to overreach. Making clear the danger of hubris in warfare, his insights hold resonant lessons for civilian and military leaders navigating today's complex global landscape. This dramatic, stylishly written history is a much-needed reflection on war from a master of his field.--Adapted from book jacket.

the tragedy of war in the twentieth century

Hubris

A bestselling historian on a crucial episode in French history. Beneath the glittering façade of Louis-Napoleon's Second Empire there were forces of seething social and political unrest. When France succumbed to the Prussian invaders these forces came to the surface and the Commune took over. It ruled for only a brief seventy days before it died in a holocaust of fire and bloodshed that was far worse than anything perpetrated during France's Great Revolution of 1789, but it left behind an indelible mark which spread far beyond the boundaries of France. 'A brilliant writer' New York Times Book Review

The Paris Commune, 1871

The Terrible Year

A Savage War of Peace, Part 1

The age of Napoleon transformed Europe, laying the foundations for the modern world. Now Alistair Horne, one of the great chroniclers of French history gives us a fresh account of that remarkable time. Born into poverty on the remote island of Corsica, he rose to prominence in the turbulent years following the French Revolution, when most of Europe was arrayed against France. Through a string of brilliant and improbable victories (gained as much through his remarkable ability to inspire his troops as through his military genius), Napoleon brought about a triumphant peace that made him the idol of France and, later, its absolute ruler. Heir to the Revolution, Napoleon himself was not a revolutionary; rather he was a reformer and a modernizer, both liberator and autocrat. Looking to the Napoleonic wars that raged on the one hand, and to the new social order emerging on the other, Horne incisively guides readers through every aspect of Napoleon’s two-decade rule: from France’s newfound commitment to an aristocracy based on merit rather than inheritance, to its civil code (Napoleon’s most important and enduring legacy), to censorship, cuisine, the texture of daily life in Paris, and the influence of Napoleon abroad. At the center of Horne’s story is a singular man, one whose ambition, willpower, energy and ability to command changed history, and continues to fascinate us today.

The Age of Napoleon

A concise history of France profiles the lives of the great leaders, artists, and others who helped shape Western culture and thought, and examines the impact of important events, social movements, and military campaigns.

A Short History

La Belle France

France 1940

To Lose a Battle

Opening with the military preparations before Paris was besieged by the invading German army in September 1870, Alistair Horne's compelling account of this dramatic episode takes the reader through the fall of Paris and German victory to the last days of the Paris Commune in May Week 1871.

The Siege and the Commune 1870-71

The Fall of Paris

Verdun was the battle which lasted ten months; the battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles; the battle whose aim was less to defeat the enemy than to bleed him to death; the battle ground whose once fertile terrain is even now the "nearest thing to desert in Europe".

A brilliant short history of the life and times of Napoleon, by the pre-eminent historian of France.

Traces the development of Paris from the twelfth century to the mid-twentieth century, identifying seven key periods in the city's history.

The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and repressive torture. Nearly a half century has passed since this savagely fought war ended in Algeria's independence, and yet--as Alistair Horne argues in his new preface to his now-classic work of history--its repercussions continue to be felt not only in Algeria and France, but throughout the world. Indeed from today's vantage point the Algerian War looks like a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad--struggles in which questions of religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism take on a new and increasingly lethal intensity. "A Savage War of Peace" is the definitive history of the Algerian War, a book that brings that terrible and complicated struggle to life with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is essential reading for our own violent times as well as a lasting monument to the historian's art.

Algeria 1954-1962

"The Paris Commune or Fourth French Revolution (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kmyn d pai]) was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 (more formally, from March 28) to May 28, 1871. In a formal sense, it acted as the local authority, the City council (in French, the "commune"), which exercised power in Paris for two months in the spring of 1871, [and had nothing to do with the much-later Communists.]"--Wikipedia.

During six weeks in 1940, Hitlers blitzkrieg shattered the redoubtable Maginot Line and, shortly thereafter, the French army. No historian has written a more definitive chronicle of that disaster than Alistair Horne, or one so emotionally gripping. Moving with cinematic swiftness from the battlefield to the Reichstag and the Palais de l...lyse, To Lose a Battle overspills the confines of traditional military history to become a portrait of the French national soul in its darkest night.

From Alistair Hornes grand trilogy on French historytwo magisterial works now back in print In 1870, Paris was the center of Europe, the font of culture, fashion, and invention. Ten months later Paris had been broken by a long Prussian siege, its starving citizens reduced to eating dogs, cats, and rats, and France had been forced to accept the humiliating surrender terms dictated by the Iron Chancellor Bismarck. To many, the fall of Paris seemed to be the fall of civilization itself. Alistair Hornes history of the Siege and its aftermath is a tour de force of military and social history, rendered with the sweep and color of a great novel.

The Siege and the Commune, 1870-71

Universally acclaimed as one of the great political lives, Alistair Horne offers a vivid portrait of one of the twentieth-century’s most complex political figures: the crofter’s grandson and the duke’s son-in-law, the soldier and the scholar, the bon viveur and the devout high churchman. Using extensive interviews and exclusive access to unpublished diaries, letter and private papers, Horne explores the Macmillan hiding behind the showman and reveals the insecure and unhappy man remembered as Britain’s most ‘unflappable’ statesman, one of the most consummate politicians of British history. ‘Alistair Horne has done Harold Macmillan proud ... a superb biography and a major contribution to history’ Robert Skidelsky, Sunday Times ‘Macmillan was essentially an artist in politics, and in Alistair Horne he has found an artist in biography. The result is the most completely satisfying life yet written on any twentieth-century British statesman’ David Cannadine, Washington Post

Alistair Horne

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