| The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It Contributor(s): Bell, David A. (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0618919813 ISBN-13: 9780618919819 Publisher: Mariner Books OUR PRICE: $17.99 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2008 Annotation: As Bell argues in this tour de force of interpretive history, nearly every modern aspect of war took root during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: conscription, unconditional surrender, mobilization of civilians, guerrilla warfare, and the notion of war fought for the sake of peace. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Military - General - History | Europe - France - History | Military - Napoleonic Wars |
| Dewey: 940.27 |
| Physical Information: 1.1" H x 5.3" W x 8" (0.90 lbs) 432 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The twentieth century is usually seen as "the century of total war." But as the historian David Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the era of muskets, cannons, and sailing ships--in the age of Napoleon. In a sweeping, evocative narrative, Bell takes us from campaigns of "extermination" in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction. It was during this time, Bell argues, that our modern attitudes toward war were born. In the eighteenth century, educated Europeans thought war was disappearing from the civilized world. So when large-scale conflict broke out during the French Revolution, they could not resist treating it as "the last war" -- a final, terrible spasm of redemptive violence that would usher in a reign of perpetual peace. As this brilliant interpretive history shows, a war for such stakes could only be apocalyptic, fought without restraint or mercy. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western world--right down to the present day, in which the hopes for an "end to history" after the cold war quickly gave way to renewed fears of full-scale slaughter. With a historian's keen insight and a journalist's flair for detail, Bell exposes the surprising parallels between Napoleon's day and our own--including the way that ambition "wars of liberation," such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into a gruesome guerrilla conflict. The result is a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable. |
Contributor Bio(s): Bell, David A.: - David A. Bell is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins and a contributing editor for the New Republic. A graduate of Harvard College, he completed his Ph.D. at Princeton and taught for several years at Yale. Bell has written for the New York Times, Slate, and Time, and was featured on the History Channel's program on the French Revolution. |
