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The First Total War : Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It Paperback - 2008
by David A. Bell
- Used
- very good
- Paperback
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.
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Details
- Title The First Total War : Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
- Author David A. Bell
- Binding Paperback
- Edition [ Edition: repri
- Condition Used - Very Good
- Pages 432
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Boston MA
- Date 2008
- Illustrated Yes
- Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Maps, Table of Contents
- Bookseller's Inventory # G0618919813I4N00
- ISBN 9780618919819 / 0618919813
- Weight 0.9 lbs (0.41 kg)
- Dimensions 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 in (20.32 x 13.46 x 2.79 cm)
-
Themes
- Chronological Period: 1800-1850
- Cultural Region: French
- Dewey Decimal Code 940.27
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Summary
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 age of Napoleon. 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, and our modern attitudes toward war were born. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western worldwhere wars of liberation,” such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into gruesome guerrilla conflict.
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 in a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable.
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 in a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable.
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Citations
- New York Times Book Review, 02/17/2008, Page 24