Si Andrew Roberts est désormais bien connu du public francophone grâce au succès de son Churchill paru en traduction en 2020, il se penche de longue date sur la personnalité, la carrière et l'oeuvre du grand homme.
Ici, l'auteur enfourche l'un de ses chevaux de bataille préférés pour s'en prendre à ceux qui suggèrent qu'au fond, il n'y avait guère de différence entre Hitler et Churchill. Leur expérience des tranchées au cours de la Grande Guerre, leur patriotisme exacerbé, la fierté qu'ils tiraient du glorieux passé de leur pays et par-dessus tout leur charisme, leur art de mener les hommes, le pouvoir psychologique qu'ils exerçaient sur les foules - et ce, souvent même en dehors de leur patrie : tout cela, lit-on çà et là, les rapprochait au point de faire d'eux des frères ennemis.
Andrew Roberts montre magnifiquement le caractère fallacieux de ces points communs supposés, et d'abord sur le plan pratique, en rappelant que Churchill a toujours su déléguer le pouvoir de décision militaire à ses chefs d'état-major en se rendant à leurs arguments - certes, non sans avoir au préalable ferraillé avec eux jusqu'au bout - tout en se réservant le rôle de représentant indiscuté du Royaume-Uni auprès de ses interlocuteurs Roosevelt et Staline. Cette délégation de pouvoir, Hitler l'a certes appliquée lors des grands triomphes de la guerre éclair, en Pologne et en France, en 1939-1940, mais il y a mis fin dès les premiers revers sur le front soviétique à la fin de 1941, pour devenir totalement incapable de faire confiance à ses généraux après l'attentat de juillet 1944. Pour l'auteur, un grand meneur d'hommes c'est un chef qui, au contraire, pratique la confiance à double sens : le commandant en chef fait confiance aux commandants sur le terrain dont il a su discerner la compétence en les nommant, et les subordonnés, aussi hauts gradés qu'ils soient, lui font confiance pour les soutenir sans réserve une fois qu'ils l'ont amené à percevoir le bien-fondé de leurs entreprises. Ce fut là, soutient Andrew Roberts dans des pages fort convaincantes, ce qui fit la force de Churchill, chef de guerre de 1940 à 1945.
De Churchill, croit-on, tout a été dit - en premier lieu par lui-même. Et pourtant, Andrew Roberts est parvenu à exhumer des articles de presse, des correspondances privées, des journaux intimes - le moindre n'étant pas celui du roi Georges VI, jusque-là sous clé - qui ne figurent dans aucune des mille biographies déjà consacrées à ce personnage essentiel de la Grande-Bretagne et du XXe siècle. Tout cela lui permet de proposer un récit extrêmement enlevé, fondé sur une abondance de citations désormais « classiques », mais également souvent peu connues, voire inédites, qui apportent un éclairage parfois convergent, parfois contrasté sur l'homme Churchill. Démêlant le vrai du faux, tordant le cou aux nombreux mythes, voire aux calomnies qui lui collent à la peau, mais relevant les critiques justifiées dont il est loin d'être exempt, Roberts brosse avec maestria le portrait de ce « Vieux Lion » dont toute la vie avant 1940 n'a fait que préparer le grand oeuvre que demeurent ses années de guerre.
Il livre là ce qui est sans doute la meilleure biographie de ce géant de l'histoire.
Andrew Robert s is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner of the Wolfson Prize for History), Masters and Commanders (winner of the Emery Reves Award) and The Storm of War (winner of the British Army Book Prize). His most recent book was Napoleon the Great (2014), which won the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoleon and the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize. Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and a Trustee of the International Churchill Society. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Dept of War Studies at King's College, London, and the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is www.andrew-roberts.net
'A Napoleonic triumph of a book, irresistibly galloping with the momentum of a cavalry charge' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'Simply dynamite' Bernard Cornwell From Andrew Roberts, author of the bestsellers The Storm of War and Churchill: Walking with Destiny , this is the definitive modern biography of Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just twenty years, from October 1795 when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'etat he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the Revolution had descended. In a series of dazzling battles he reinvented the art of warfare; in peace, he completely remade the laws of France, modernised her systems of education and administration, and presided over a flourishing of the beautiful 'Empire style' in the arts. The impossibility of defeating his most persistent enemy, Great Britain, led him to make draining and ultimately fatal expeditions into Spain and Russia, where half a million Frenchmen died and his Empire began to unravel. More than any other modern biographer, Andrew Roberts conveys Napoleon's tremendous energy, both physical and intellectual, and the attractiveness of his personality, even to his enemies. He has walked 53 of Napoleon's 60 battlefields, and has absorbed the gigantic new French edition of Napoleon's letters, which allows a complete re-evaluation of this exceptional man. He overturns many received opinions, including the myth of a great romance with Josephine: she took a lover immediately after their marriage, and, as Roberts shows, he had three times as many mistresses as he acknowledged. Of the climactic Battle of Leipzig in 1813, as the fighting closed around them, a French sergeant-major wrote, 'No-one who has not experienced it can have any idea of the enthusiasm that burst forth among the half-starved, exhausted soldiers when the Emperor was there in person. If all were demoralised and he appeared, his presence was like an electric shock. All shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" and everyone charged blindly into the fire.' The reader of this biography will understand why this was so.
On the morning of the battle of Waterloo, the Emperor Napoleon declared that the Duke of Wellington was a bad general, the British were bad soldiers and that France could not fail to win an easy victory. Forever afterwards historians have accused him of gross overconfidence, and massively underestimating the calibre of the British commander opposed to him. Andrew Roberts presents an original, highly revisionist view of the relationship between the two greatest captains of their age. Napoleon, who was born in the same year as Wellington - 1769 - fought Wellington by proxy years earlier in the Peninsula War, praising his ruthlessness in private while publicly deriding him as a mere 'sepoy general'. In contrast, Wellington publicly lauded Napoleon, saying that his presence on a battlefield was worth forty thousand men, but privately wrote long memoranda lambasting Napoleon's campaigning techniques. Although Wellington saved Napoleon from execution after Waterloo, Napoleon left money in his will to the man who had tried to assassinate Wellington. Wellington in turn amassed a series of Napoleonic trophies of his great victory, even sleeping with two of the Emperor's mistresses.
Describes how four titanic figures shaped the grand strategy of the West during the Second World War. This book traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations which resulted.
On 2 August 1944 Winston Churchill mocked Adolf Hitler in the House of Commons by the rank he had reached in the First World War. 'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of Herr Hitler, of Corporal Hitler,' Churchill jibed. 'Even military idiots find it difficult not to see some faults in his actions.' Andrew Roberts's previous book Masters and Commanders studied the creation of Allied grand strategy; The Storm of War now analyses how Axis strategy evolved. Examining the Second World War on every front, Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, the Axis might even have won. Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former Führer once he was safely beyond defending himself? The book is full of illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bring their characters and the ways in which they reached decisions into fresh focus.
Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner, the Wolfson Prize for History); Masters and Commanders ; and The Storm of War , which reached No. 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. His most recent book was Napoleon the Great (2014), which won the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoleon. Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and Arts. He appears regularly on British television and radio and writes for the Sunday Telegraph , Spectator , Literary Review , Mail on Sunday and Daily Telegraph.
'Undoubtedly the best single-volume life of Churchill ever written' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times A magnificently fresh and unexpected biography of Churchill, by one of Britain's most acclaimed historians Winston Churchill towers over every other figure in twentieth-century British history. By the time of his death at the age of 90 in 1965, many thought him to be the greatest man in the world. There have been over a thousand previous biographies of Churchill. Andrew Roberts now draws on over forty new sources, including the private diaries of King George VI, used in no previous Churchill biography to depict him more intimately and persuasively than any of its predecessors. The book in no way conceals Churchill's faults and it allows the reader to appreciate his virtues and character in full: his titanic capacity for work (and drink), his ability see the big picture, his willingness to take risks and insistence on being where the action was, his good humour even in the most desperate circumstances, the breadth and strength of his friendships and his extraordinary propensity to burst into tears at unexpected moments. Above all, it shows us the wellsprings of his personality - his lifelong desire to please his father (even long after his father's death) but aristocratic disdain for the opinions of almost everyone else, his love of the British Empire, his sense of history and its connection to the present. During the Second World War, Churchill summoned a particular scientist to see him several times for technical advice. 'It was the same whenever we met', wrote the young man, 'I had a feeling of being recharged by a source of living power.' Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's emissary, wrote 'Wherever he was, there was a battlefront.' Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Churchill's essential partner in strategy and most severe critic in private, wrote in his diary, 'I thank God I was given such an opportunity of working alongside such a man, and of having my eyes opened to the fact that occasionally such supermen exist on this earth.'
Ce guide permet d'identifier, de récolter et de collectionner tous les mollusques terrestres européens (coquillages, escargots et limaces). Il recense plus de 300 espèces de mollusques, des plus communes aux plus rares.
Chaque description présente la morphologie de l'animal, son aire de répartition, son habitat, éventuellement ses caractéristiques biologiques. Plus de 200 espèces sont illustrées en couleurs, souvent sous différents aspects (coquille ou animal, contracté ou en extension, forme typique ou variation...).
Nous cherchons tous le bonheur. Au-delà des religions, lorsque nous avons besoin de réconfort, d'inspiration et de guidance, il y a toujours eu une autre voie pour vivre bien et mieux : l'approche humaniste.
Dans ce livre, retrouvez plus de deux mille ans de sagesse humaniste à travers un recueil inspirant de récits, de citations et de méditations sur la façon de vivre une vie éthique et épanouissante, fondée sur la raison et l'humanité.
Une introduction parfaite à la philosophie humaniste des plus grands penseurs de l'histoire et d'aujourd'hui.
Boasting dozens of national parks and reserves, Uganda is a supremely diverse wildlife-viewing destination. Home to a wealth of forest and savannah mammals, as well as 1,000-plus bird species, here you can track chimpanzees, walk with white rhinos, get up close to shoebills, and take a safari in search of tree-climbing lions. But it's not just about the fauna : scale the lofty volcanic peaks of the Virengas, experience life among the Karamojong at a traditional manyatza, or simply enjoy some peace and relaxation at lovely lake Bunyonyi.
Now in its ninth edition, Bradt's Uganda remains the most comprehensive guide to this exciting country. Written by Africa expert Philip Briggs and Uganda specialist Andrew Roberts, it includes detailed background and freshly updates pratical information, plus a new 32-page colour wildlife section.
The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
A major new history of war by historian Andrew Roberts and General David Petraeus, former commander of the US-led coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan and former director of the CIA.
In Conflict, co-authors General David Petraeus, former commander of the US-led coalition in both Iraq and Afghanistan and former Director of the CIA, and the military historian Professor Andrew Roberts, identify what were the lessons that Putin ought to have learned, and explain how not putting them into practice has led to profound strategic and tactical problems in Russia''s invasion of Ukraine.
Petraeus and Roberts unite their different areas of expertise to explain how warfare has changed since World War Two, how statesmen and generals have adapted to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies in the fighting of wars. They reflect on the way that the Russian High Command has consistently ignored these and many other lessons in Ukraine.
Roberts'' skills as a bestselling historian and Petraeus'' vast experience as both battlefield commander and unrivalled strategist combine to make Conflict a landmark contribution to global military history.
Une compilation de trois mini-séries publiées uniquement sur le web où l'on retrouve tous les personnages emblématiques de l'univers de World of Warcraft. Retrouvez dix récits se déroulant sur Azeroth durant les trois dernières extensions du jeu vidéo culte : Warlords pf Draenor, Legion et Battle for Azeroth. Jaina, Magni, les Coursevent, Haut-Roc ou encore les Sacrenuit sont au centre de ces histoires inédites.
On entend souvent dire que la communication est la clé des relations interpersonnelles heureuses et saines. Certes, plusieurs études en ont démontré les effets positifs, mais saviez-vous qu'une communication adéquate peut aussi avoir des conséquences bénéfiques sur votre cerveau et sur celui de vos interlocuteurs ? Voilà la thèse que les auteurs Andrew Newberg et Mark Waldman proposent dans ce nouveau livre, où ils enseignent la communication de compassion, c'est-à-dire l'art d'être conscient de notre manière de nous exprimer et de ses effets sur le cerveau. Lorsqu'on parle à quelqu'un, on a très rarement conscience de notre débit, de notre ton, du volume de notre voix, du choix de nos mots, de nos expressions faciales et de notre posture. Pourtant, ces aspects influencent grandement l'humeur, les perceptions et les réactions de nos interlocuteurs. Par exemple, nous ne soupçonnons pas tous les effets qu'un sourire provoque dans le cerveau des gens qui le voient, ni les réactions hormonales déclenchées chez nos interlocuteurs par la simple formulation du mot « oui » sur nos lèvres. Ce livre vous propose une multitude d'exercices à faire en couple, avec vos enfants ou au travail pour vous faire prendre conscience des réactions d'autrui face à votre manière de vous exprimer. Vous serez amené, par exemple, à marquer des pauses de plusieurs secondes entre les mots, à parler sans émotion, ou à respirer profondément avant de commencer une phrase. Au terme de votre lecture, vous verrez la communication d'un autre oeil... et votre cerveau aussi !
In the last months of his life, Edouard Manet funnelled his waning energy into a series of remarkable still lifes - 16 small paintings of flowers - which are brought together in this book. Also included is an essay paying tribute to Manet's struggle and his legacy, and selections from his letters.
