Books of interest

Sailors of Varied Fortune: The Schombergs afloat and ashore

Paul Martinovich

Amazon UK £41 Amazon US $54.95

Who would have thought that among the contemporaries of Hood and Nelson were four successful Royal Navy captains named Schomberg? This book reveals how these closely-related men navigated the choppy waters of a demanding and competitive service. Over ninety years the four Captains Schomberg (Alexander, Isaac, Alexander Wilmot and Charles Marsh) encountered the challenges of battle, storm and professional missteps, as they built reputations for energy and competence.

As their name suggests, these men did not come from a conventional RN officer background — the Navy or the gentry. The Schombergs were the offspring of an immigrant German-Jewish doctor, a man of considerable repute in early Georgian London. They seem to have inherited his erudition and intelligence, traits evident when they took on important administrative duties, mixed with artists, and wrote several books.…

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of an almost forgotten aspect of the campaigns 1813–1814: the battle for the fortresses on the left bank of the Lower Rhine, in the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, before the decision was made in Paris at the end of March 1814. Unlike the great land battles of the autumn campaign of 1813, the sieges of the 33 fortresses decided the liberation of the Netherlands and Belgium. The campaign was, in a sense, the initial spark for the founding of the modern Netherlands under the rule of the House of Orange. This book is therefore the sequel to the book "The Forgotten War of Liberation - Besieged Fortresses between Memel and the Rhine in 1813-1814" by authors Hemmann and Klöffler. The introduction briefly outlines the basics of fortress warfare in the Napoleonic era and the situation at the end of 1813. The operations of…

VIVA NAPOLEÓN / MUERA BONAPARTE! Propaganda y opiniones contrastadas en el mundo hispánico (1798-1810)

Carlos Gustavo Mejía Chávez

Despuntaba el siglo XIX cuando la imagen heroica de Napoleón Bonaparte se esparcía por España y América.Escritos, canciones, poemas y estampas evocaban al general invicto, al artífice de la paz, al gran estadista del mundo moderno. Pero la invasión a España en 1808 provocó la inversión de la propaganda. Una avalancha de textos dibujó a Napoleón como el gran traidor y tirano.El "excelso emperador" se disolvió en el "Anticristo de Córcega"; el aclamado moderador de la Revolución francesa fue calificado como hereje y ateísta. En Nueva España, agitada por conspiraciones y movimientos revolucionarios, el rostro de Napoleón quiso verse reflejado en el espejo de Hidalgo y de los líderes de la independencia.A través del estudio de un inmenso repertorio de sermones, gacetas, estampas, libelos satíricos y procesos judiciales, este libro nos permite…

A Double-Edged Sword: The Biography of Commodore Jesse Duncan Elliott, 1782–1845 (Maritime Currents: History and Archaeology David F. Long Publisher : ‎ University Alabama Press

Publication date : ‎ February 15, 2026

Print length: ‎ 280 pages

ISBN: ‎ 978-0817362409

An overdue reassessment of one of the US Navy’s most decorated―and divisive―early commanders, whose legacy remains teetering between heroism and scandalous.

A Double-Edged Sword: The Biography of Commodore Jesse Duncan Elliott, 1782–1845 is a comprehensive and long-overdue portrait of one of the most polarizing figures in early US naval history. Written over the course of a decade and completed shortly before the author’s death, this meticulously researched biography revisits the career of a man once hailed for his military exploits―and later condemned for a myriad of personal controversies―including his perceived missteps while in command.