Napoleon Bonaparte: a man of intense emotion, iron self-discipline, acute intelligence & immeasurable energy. Michael Broers brings this remarkable man to life, from his dangerous Corsican roots to the epic battles of Austerlitz, Jena & Friedl&. Here is the incredible story of how one man`s sheer determination, ruthlessness & careful calculation drove France to conquer Europe. This is the first volume of a revelatory new biography of the great ruler told with energy, style & brand new research. Here is the first life in which Napoleon speaks in his own uncensored voice
- but not always as he wanted the world to hear him.
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` Napoleon is an out-&-out masterpiece & a joy to read` Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad A landmark new biography that presents the man behind the many myths. The first writer in English to go back to the original European sources, Adam Zamoyski`s portrait of Napoleon is historical biography at its finest. Napoleon inspires passionately held & often conflicting visions. Was he a god-like genius, Romantic avatar, megalomaniac monster, compulsive warmonger or just a nasty little dictator? While he displayed elements of these traits at certain times, Napoleon was none of these things. He was a man &, as Adam Zamoyski presents him in this landmark biography, a rather ordinary one at that. He exhibited some extraordinary qualities during some phases of his life but it is hard to credit genius to a general who presided over the worst (and self-inflicted) disaster in military history & who single-handedly destroyed the great enterprise he & others had toiled so hard to construct. A brilliant tactician, he was no strategist. But nor was Napoleon an evil monster. He could be selfish & violent but there is no evidence of him wishing to inflict suffering gratuitously. His motives were mostly praiseworthy & his ambition no greater than that of contemporaries such as Alexander I of Russia, Wellington, Nelson & many more. What made his ambition exceptional was the scope it was accorded by circumstance. Adam Zamoyski strips away the lacquer of prejudice & places Napoleon the man within the context of his times. In the 1790s, a young Napoleon entered a world at war, a bitter struggle for supremacy & survival with leaders motivated by a quest for power & by self-interest. He did not start this war but it dominated his life & continued, with one brief interruption, until his final defeat in 1815. Based on primary sources in many European languages, & beautifully illustrated with portraits done only from life, this magnificent book examines how Napoleone Buonaparte, the boy from Corsica, became ` Napoleon`; how he achieved what he did, & how it came about that he undid it. It does not justify or condemn but seeks instead to understand Napoleon`s extraordinary trajectory. ...

On the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip, & secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials & slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious & petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family & becomes his unlikely friend. Based on fact, Napoleon`s Last Island is the surprising story of one of history`s most enigmatic figures & a British family who dared to associate with him. It is a tale of vengeance, duplicity & loyalty, & of a man whose charisma made him dangerous to the end. ...

Street plan of Narbonne at 1:8, 500 with an enlargement showing the town centre in greater detail, plus a street plan of Narbonne Plage & a road map of the city’s environs. This title is part of an extensive series of street plans of French towns from Blay-Foldex, the country’s largest, oldest & most experienced publisher of urban mapping. Blay plans include outer suburbs &, where appropriate, adjoining localities forming part of the urban agglomeration & provide brief descriptions of the town’s main sights, contact details for hotels & other places of interest, etc. The plans show one way streets, car parks & pedestrian zones. Important public buildings are clearly marked & identified. Blay street maps are usually double-sided & include an enlargement for the town centre & a street index with separate lists of “edifices publics”: main public buildings, places of worship, schools, sport facilities, stations, etc. Each of the outer suburbs or the adjoining localities, identified with its postcode, has a separate index. Many titles also provide a road map of the environs. All the text is in French only.PLEASE NOTE: to see the list of Blay-Foldex street plans of French towns & cities please click on the series link – the series description also

Includes:: a comparison between Blay & IGN street plans.

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Topographic survey of France at 1:25, 000 in IGN`s excellent TOP25 / Série Bleue series. All the maps are GPS compatible, with a 1km UTM grid plus latitude & longitude lines at 5’ intervals. Contours are at 5m intervals except for mountainous areas where the maps have contours at 10m intervals, vividly enhanced by hill shading & graphics for rocky terrain. Colouring with graphics indicates different types of vegetation or land use (deciduous or coniferous forests, moors, orchards, vineyards, etc). PLEASE NOTE: coverage of France at this scale is currently being revised – the format & the presentation of each title are indicated by the letters at the end of its Sheet Reference number (e.g. 0416ET, 3531ETR, 1923SB, etc.)MAPS WITH FULL TOURIST OVERPRINT & AN ENGLISH MAP LEGEND: all TOP25 maps & the SB editions of Série Bleue have an overprint highlighting waymarked walking trails including long-distance GR routes &, where appropriate, ski routes. Symbols indicate campsites, gîtes d’etape, refuges, equestrian centres & other recreational facilities or sites, tourist information centres, cultural heritage, etc. Towns & locations of particular interest are highlighted.- ET or OT = single-sided TOP25 map covering approx. 29x 21 km / 18x 13 miles.- ETR or OTR = waterproof & tear resistant TOP25 map covering the same area as the corresponding ET or OT number, but double-sided, printed on a smaller size sheet with a good overlap between the sides.- SB = Série Bleue map with full tourist overprint; these maps, first introduced in summer 2014, each cover approx. 29x 24km / 18x 15 miles.SÉRIE BLEUE maps with numbers ending in E (Est) or O (Ouest): most editions now indicate the GR routes, but do not show any other tourist information. Map legend is in French only. Each map covers approx. 14x 20km / 9x 12 miles. ...

The 1:50 000 topographic map gives a more general picture of the ground features than a basic map. It shows settlements, houses, roads, cultivated areas, waterways, cutting areas, mires, rock exposures, & relief. One map sheet covers an area of 30 x 40 km & one centimetre corresponds to 500 metres on the ground. The 1:50, 000 topographic map is also an ideal complement to nautical charts as it provides useful information about the land areas adjacent to waterways. For example, all Finnish sea areas are covered by 1:50 000 topographic map sheets. ...

The 1:50, 000 topographic map gives a more general picture of the ground features than a basic map. It shows settlements, houses, roads, cultivated areas, waterways, cutting areas, mires, rock exposures, & relief. One map sheet covers an area of 30 x 40 km & one centimetre corresponds to 500 metres on the ground. The 1:50, 000 topographic map is also an ideal complement to nautical charts as it provides useful information about the land areas adjacent to waterways. For example, all Finnish sea areas are covered by 1:50, 000 topographic map sheets. ...

On a rainy day in the middle of June, on the day England & Costa Rica meet in the World Cup, G., a thirty-five-year-old aspiring writer is waiting in line at the post office to mail off a manuscript
- a story about a day in the life of a thirty-five-year-old man. That`s when he encounters a former romantic rival, a man he once wished didn`t exist. On a whim, G. begins trailing the man throughout Reykjavik. What starts as an amusing tale of cat & mouse turns into a complex, introspective journey of a man struggling to complete the unfinished narrative of his own life.
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A thorough grounding is provided in this book in all aspects of looking after the various systems that make up a narrow boat. Proper installation & maintenance of these systems is vital for safe & enjoyable cruising. It will enable all narrow boat owners to keep equipment in good working order. All systems are covered, including hull & superstructure, engine, electrics, plumbing, heating, woodwork & fittings. Also included are routine maintenance checks, larger repairs/overhauls & full explanations of current safety standards. The book is illustrated with photographs & explanatory line drawings. ...

` We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure...` When they retired, Terry & Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrow boat across the Channel & down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim. On the Phyllis May, you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhone, & fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue. You meet the French nobody meets
- poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen
- they all want to know the people on the painted boat & their narrow dog. You visit the France nobody knows
- the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saone, & the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean. Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish & the walking dead all stand between our three innocents & their goal
- many-towered Carcassonne.



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