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What Roberts has delivered is a thoughtful, witty and authoritative study that focuses on the relationship between the two great soldiers and how they regarded each other, as soldiers and as men -- Richard Pearson * WASHINGTON POST * Roberts has done the study of the Napoleonic era a tremendous amount of good by opening up the minds of the rivals to public gaze. It is true to say that having read Napoleon and Wellington, you will look at the great struggle in a very different light -- Richard Moore * THE NAPOLEONIC GUIDE * Andrew Roberts has given us a double biography, written with tremendous pace and verve -- Desmond Seward * BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE * Roberts gives his reader a wonderful account of a relationship that occurred in two men's heads -- Timothy Wilson-Smith * THE TABLET * In Roberts' sensitive hands the two men come fully alive, along with their campaigns and their battles. He understands military matters as he does human - a rare accomplishment -- Eric Jacobs Broadway * HAM AND HIGH * Truly a brilliant work, sparkling with the reflected fascination of the subject interspersed with the judicious comments of the author -- Jeremy Black * HISTORY TODAY * Andrew Roberts's Napoleon and Wellington draws us right into the minds of two of the world's greatest generals. Roberts is an excellent non-academic historian -- Melvyn Bragg * BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOKS OF THE YEAR * History has just replaced cooking and gardening as the sexiest and most bankable contemporary subject in publishing. If that is so, the prolific and consistently brilliant historian Andrew Roberts must take much of the credit -- Robert Beaumont * YORKSHIRE POST * What Mr Roberts has done so admirably is uncover the human responses between two men who might otherwise be just dry political or military figures, and he has added a new and valuable dimension to our understanding of the Napoleonic age in doing so -- Simon Heffer * COUNTRY LIFE * Roberts offers a master class in how to write a historical magnum opus; filled with anecdotes and observations to inform and entertain the general reader, yet with the structure and academic rigour to satisfy the most demanding Napoleonic scholar ... intellectual tour de force -- Frank Harris * WATERSTONE'S QUARTERLY * [A] brilliant double portrait -- Philip Mansel * MAIL ON SUNDAY * Roberts has assembled a rare wealth of material, and his love for his venture is evident -- George Lucas * FINANCIAL TIMES * Roberts does his best throughout this thoughtful and absorbing book to hold the balance between his protagonists both as soldiers and men * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * Roberts sets out to explore each man's contrasting qualities and their opinion of each other. In the process he has uncovered a number of corporeal connections: some enchanting, some mysterious, and others unsavoury -- Roger Hutchinson * THE SCOTSMAN * A must-have for anyone interested in Napoleonic history, Napoleon and Wellington is an easy read, containing a wealth of information. Highly recommended, this work is destined to become a classic * NAPOLEONIC ALLIANCE GAZETTE * Andrew Roberts has entered the lists of Napoleonic historians, tilted at champions and sent many away with bruised and broken bones. Some of them may never recover -- Allan Mallinson * THE TIMES * Andrew Roberts' excellent book strips away the cliched public statements and looks at the real relationship between the two greatest commanders of their age. It is a fascinating tale. The core of this splendid and thoughtful book is ultimately his judgement on the two men and their record -- David Chandler * RUSI JOURNAL * He writes so well that his new book will find a ready audience among admirers of both his protagonists -- Max Hastings * EVENING STANDARD * Andrew Roberts, the political biographer whose life of Lord Salisbury won him the Wolfson Prize for 1999, now brings the same qualities of insight and judgment to the field of military history -- Correlli Barnett * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * This is narrative history, readable, well-researched and lively as dry champagne -- Jane Ridley * SPECTATOR * It is one of Andrew Roberts's merits that, as well as being intelligent, hard-working and opinionated, he gets great fun out of his writing. His books are consequently not only genuinely important but also a pleasure to read -- Philip Ziegler * DAILY TELEGRAPH * The book is thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully written and meticulously researched -- Jason Bourke * OBSERVER *

In this study of Boney and the Iron Duke, historian Andrew Roberts presents, not a biography but an examination of the relationship between these two colossal figures of military genius who never met but who thought constantly about each other. Napoleon and Wellington, stripped of myth, live again in all their psychological complexity: born in 1769 and both technically foreigners in the countries they served, they had courage, enormous self-confidence, conviction and a couple of mistresses in common, and they both attempted to re-write history post-Waterloo. The one became emperor of France and the other prime minister of Britain, but they differed significantly in attitude, character and makeup. Napoleon left money in his will to Wellington's would-be assasin, but Wellington twice saved Napoleon's life. The reader also learns how surprisingly popular Napoleon was in certain British circles, and how often popular and political opinion went against Wellington - Byron detested him and in 1832 he was stoned by the London mob. Based on thorough and meticulous research, Roberts' fluently-written book is also a gripping story of two men favoured by chance, their egos and acts of hubris, and the fate of nations. The sheer scale of the Napoleonic Wars is indicated in awesome statistics and information about logistics and communications; armies often comprised hundreds of thousands and battles were fought as far south as Egypt and as far north as Moscow. Napoleon and Wellington is a 'must-have' for both the general and specialist reader. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Andrew Roberts took a first in Modern History at Cambridge. He has been a professional historian since the publication of his life of Lord Halifax, The Holy Fox, in 1991. He contributes regularly to The Sunday Telegraph and lives in Chelsea, London, with his family. His new book Hitler and Churchill is published in May 2003.

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