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Chopin: A biography

ZAMOYSKI, Adam

Collins

Paderewski

See notes

The Sunday Times bestselling account of Napoleon's invasion of Russia and eventual retreat from Moscow, events that had a profound effect on the subsequent course of Russian and European history. Moscow has both fascinated military historians and captured the imagination of millions on an emotional and human level. 1812 tells the story of how the most powerful man on earth met his doom, and how the greatest fighting force ever assembled was wiped out. Over 400,000 French and Allied troops died on the disastrous Russian campaign, with the vast majority of the casualties occuring during the frigid winter retreat. Adam Zamoyski tells their story with incredible detail and sympathy, drawing on a wealth of first-hand accounts of the tragedy to create a vivid portrait of an unimaginable catastrophe. power. His intention was to destroy Britain through a total blockade, the Continental System. But Tsar Alexander of Russia refused to apply the blockade, and Napoleon decided to bring him to heel. ramifications on Russian, French, German and, indeed, European history and culture cannot be understated. Adam Zamoyski's epic, enthralling narrative is the definitive account of the events of that dramatic year.

1812: Napoleon’S Fatal March on Moscow

History

Europe

Harperperennial

Moscow 1812 : Napoleon's Fatal March

Military

HarperCollins, Publishers

. with dustjacket, 2007 clean bright copy

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

Harpercollins

Following on from his epic '1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow', Adam Zamoyski has written the dramatic story of the Congress of Vienna, which was to bring about the political reshaping of Europe and whose legacy affected international relations for a century.

The dramatic and little-known story of how, in the summer of 1920, Lenin came within a hair's breadth of shattering the painstakingly constructed Versailles peace settlement and spreading Bolshevism to western Europe. In 1920 the new Soviet state was a mess, following a brutal civil war, and the best way of ensuring its survival appeared to be to export the revolution to Germany, itself economically ruined by defeat in World War I and racked by internal political dissension. Between Russia and Germany lay Poland, a nation that had only just recovered its independence after more than a century of foreign oppression. But it was economically and militarily weak and its misguided offensive to liberate the Ukraine in the spring of 1920 laid it open to attack. Egged on by Trotsky, Lenin launched a massive westward advance under the flamboyant Marshal Tukhachevsky. All that Great Britain and France had fought for over four years now seemed at risk. By the middle of August the Russians were only a few kilometres from Warsaw, and Berlin was less than a week's march away. Then occurred the 'Miracle of the Vistula': the Polish army led by Jozef Pilsudski regrouped and achieved one of the most decisive victories in military history. As a result, the Versailles peace settlement survived, and Lenin was forced to settle for Communism in one country. The battle for Warsaw bought Europe nearly two decades of peace, and communism remained a mainly Russian phenomenon, subsuming many of the autocratic and Byzantine characteristics of Russia's tsarist tradition.

Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe

HarperPress

Zamoyski documents the dramatic and little-known story of how, in the summer of 1920, Lenin came within a hair's breadth of shattering the painstakingly constructed Versailles peace settlement and spreading Bolshevism to Western Europe.

Warsaw 1920

William Collins

A magnificent and timely examination of an age of fear, subversion, suppression and espionage, Adam Zamoyski explores the attempts of the governments of Europe to police the world in a struggle against obscure forces, seemingly dedicated to the overthrow of civilisation.The advent of the French Revolution confirmed the worst fears of the rulers of Europe. They saw their states as storm-tossed vessels battered by terrible waves coming from every quarter and threatened by horrific monsters from the deep. Rulers' nerves were further unsettled by the voices of the Enlightenment, envisaging improvement only through a radical transformation of existing structures, with undeniable implications for the future role of the monarchy and the Church.Napoleon's arrival on the European stage intensified these fears, and the changes he wrought across Europe fully justified them. Yet he also brought some comfort to those rulers who managed to survive: he had tamed the revolution in France and the hegemony he exercised over Europe was a kind of guarantee against subversion. Once Napoleon was toppled, the monarchs of Europe took over this role for themselves.However, the nature of their attempts to impose order were not only ineffectual, they also managed to weaken the bases of that order. As counter-productive as anything, for example, was the use of force. Reliance on standing armies to maintain order only served to politicize the military and to give potential revolutionaries the opportunity to get their hands on a ready armed force.The wave of revolutions in 1848 might have embodied the climactic clash that many had come to expect, but it was no Armageddon, lacking the kind of mass support that rulers had dreaded and revealed the groundlessness of most of their fears. Interestingly, the sense of a great, ill-defined, subversive threat never went away, indeed it lingers on even today in the minds of world leaders.Adam Zamoyski's compelling history explores how the rulers and governments of the time really did envisage the future and how they meant to assure it.

Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789-1848

Few composers elicit such strong emotions as Chopin. Few have been more revered and cherished. And few have had so much sentimental nonsense written about them.Published to coincide with the bicentenary of Chopin's birth, Adam Zamoyski's compelling new biography cuts through the mass of anecdote and myth that has sprung up around the composer's life and the ebullient and striking personalities of Romantic Paris among whom he lived, including Liszt, Berlioz, Victor Hugo and George Sand, in search of the real Chopin.Zamoyski brings to the subject an unrivalled knowledge of the historical, social and cultural background of the composer's native Poland as well as of the France in which he spent most of his creative life. He has scoured the archives of Warsaw, Krakow, Paris and London in his quest for the truth, and has based his account exclusively on primary sources and contemporary accounts.The result is a biography of authority, perception and wit. Chopin emerges from the sugary romantic mist in which he has been shrouded as a real, palpable personality, a man of intelligence and humour; in music an innovator of genius; in business a feckless spendthrift; in love hesitant and tender; in friendship passionately loyal but often intolerably exacting. Through a close reading of his letters and the use of everyday detail, Zamoyski draws the reader into the private world of this most complicated and reticent of men - 'a man made for intimacy', as the poet Heinrich Heine called him - and reveals the real passions, suffering and ultimate tragedy of his life.

Chopin: Prince of the Romantics

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

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Books by ZAMOYSKI, Adam

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ZAMOYSKI, Adam. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Chopin: A biography

Paderewski

1812: Napoleon’S Fatal March on Moscow

Moscow 1812 : Napoleon's Fatal March

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe

Warsaw 1920

Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789-1848

Chopin: Prince of the Romantics