Lessons from Those Who Made History

Leadership in War

'Wonderful ... among military historians, Roberts is Britain's crown gem' Wall Street Journal 
 
Taking us from the French Revolution to the Cold War and the Falklands, celebrated historian Andrew Roberts presents us with a bracingly honest and insightful look at nine major figures in modern history: Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, George C. Marshall, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Margaret Thatcher. 
 
Each of these leaders fundamentally shaped the outcome of the war their nation was embroiled in. How were they alike, and in what ways did they differ? Was their war leadership unique, or did these leaders have something in common, traits and techniques that transcend time and place and can be applied to the fundamental nature of conflict? 
 
Meticulously researched and compellingly written, Leadership in War presents readers with fresh, complex portraits of leaders who approached war with different tactics and different weapons, but with the common goal of success in the face of battle. Both inspiring and cautionary, these portraits offer important lessons on leadership in times of struggle. With his trademark verve and incisive observation, Roberts reveals the qualities that doom even the most promising leaders to failure, and the qualities that lead to victory.

Roberts is superbly well-qualified to write about these extraordinary leaders. Roberts teaches not just through analysis, as indeed he does, but by example. Each of his chapters is a finely crafted gem of communication. Roberts's description offers vivid detail, spare prose, immortal rhetoric, and a touch of humor. His chapters offer masterly, magnificent portraits of what it takes to steer an army or a nation through a crisis. Any leader would envy the chance to have Roberts as his or her speechwriter or Director of Communications. Every reader can be grateful for such a thrilling and succinct account of leadership.

A condensation of a wonderful series of lectures Mr Roberts delivered to the New-York Historical Society ... Among military historians, Mr Roberts is Britain's crown gem, and his pithy insights compiled in 'Leadership in War' reflect decades of diligent, patient study.

Meticulously researched and full of revelations, this is a fascinating read.

Leadership in War is an understated treasure of 2019...a tour de force of historical portraiture.

Leadership in War has the enjoyable feel of a lively dinner table conversation.

illuminating experiences are presented in easily digestible form in Andrew Roberts's new book, Leadership in War, a collection of nine portraits of wartime leaders, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Margaret Thatcher. These portrayals were originally delivered as lectures by Roberts, a prolific historian of World War II and biographer of Napoleon and Churchill. The profiles of Napoleon and Dwight D. Eisenhower are the most salient for business readers, but it is not difficult to find insight in nearly all of them

Few authors compare to Andrew Roberts. He dips his pen in the most eloquent ink to bring to life figures who have heaps of lessons to teach us

Roberts has a gift for finding the anecdote or quotation which reveals an essential truth about his subject.

Few authors compare to Andrew Roberts. He dips his pen in the most eloquent ink to bring to life figures who have heaps of lessons to teach us

His analyses of the criteria needed for success are succinct and... convincing. ... The mysteries of leadership in times of conflict probably evade ultimate explanation, but Roberts, the biographer of Napoleon and Churchill, does much to throw new light on them,

Napoleon, Nelson, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Marshall, de Gaulle, Eisenhower and Thatcher: each of these leaders fundamentally shaped the outcome of the war their nation was embroiled in. How were they alike, and in what ways did they differ? Was their war leadership unique, or did these leaders have something in common, traits and techniques that transcend time and place and can be applied to the fundamental nature of conflict? 
 
Meticulously researched and compellingly written, Leadership in War presents readers with fresh, complex portraits of leaders who approached war with different tactics and different weapons, but with the common goal of success in the face of battle. Both inspiring and cautionary, these portraits offer important lessons on leadership in times of struggle. With his trademark verve and incisive observation, Roberts reveals the qualities that doom even the most promising leaders to failure, and the qualities that lead to victory.

Walking with Destiny

Churchill

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 
A SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, ECONOMIST, DAILY TELEGRAPH, EVENING STANDARD, OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
'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.'

This terrific book, which bursts with character, humour and incident on almost every page ... is undoubtedly the best single-volume life of Churchill ever written

It's the sort of biography that, one feels, Churchill himself would have wanted. Colossal, energetic, deeply knowledgeable, properly critical, but also sympathetic and, in places, deliciously funny

An original portrait of an all-too-familiar figure ... He enriches the saga with wonderful examples of Churchill's aristocratic eccentricity, glittering oratory and wit

Roberts has produced a more complete picture of his subject than any previous biography. His certainly knocks into a cocked hat Boris Johnson's boisterously self-referential effort of a few years ago

A stupendous achievement: lucid, erudite, intelligent, but also inspiring. Roberts catches the imperishable grandeur of Churchill's life as no other historian has done

As Andrew Roberts reminds us in this epic biography ... Churchill's career provides ample proof that fact can be far more extraordinary than fiction

A work of unequalled scholarship. Read it and you will not have to bother with the previous 1,000 biographies

A heroic biography, appropriately matched to the ambition, egotism and undoubted achievement of the life it describes

Brilliant, breathtaking, unputdownable ... All Roberts's past life has been but a preparation for this hour and this work, and this brilliant book is a fitting crown to his own career

In a single volume, Andrew Roberts has captured the essence of one of the world's most impactful, most memorable statesmen. It is the crowning achievement of his career - and will become the definitive biography of its subject.

Napoleon the Great

'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'état 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.

Simply dynamite ... Roberts's fine book encompasses all the evidence to give a brilliant portrait of the man

Masterly ... a huge, rich, deep, witty, humane and unapologetically admiring biography ... gloriously enjoyable

A New History of the Second World War

The Storm of War

From the author of Masters and Commanders, Andrew Roberts' The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic conflict. 
 
 The Second World War lasted for 2,174 days and claimed the lives of over 50 million people. Why did it take the course that it did? Why did the Axis lose? And could they, with a different strategy, have won? 
 
 Ranging from the Western front to North Africa, from the Baltic to the Far East, he brings the story of the war - and those who fought it - into focus as never before. 
 
 'One of the greatest historians of our time ... His masterpiece' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Oliver Marre, Observer 
 
 'An undoubted triumph. This, simply, is the best one-volume history of the Second World War currently available' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Laurence Rees 
 
 'Magnificent ... Stylish penmanship, gritty research and lucid reasoning, coupled with poignant and haunting detours into private lives ruined and shortened' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist 
 
 'Moving, thought-provoking, enlightening' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Roger Moorhouse, Independent 
 
 'An exceptional accomplishment ... the definitive single-volume history of the war ... Essential' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Peter Watts, Time Out 
 
 'In what might be his best book yet, Roberts gives us the war as seen from the other side of the hill - the German Reich' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Nigel Jones, Sunday Telegraph 
 
 Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders was one of the most acclaimed, bestselling history books of 2008. His previous books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction, Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), which coincided with four-part BBC2 history series.

Roberts's populist approach makes for a rollicking good read and never comes at the expense of accuracy. His mastery of the huge variety of subjects is truly impressive and his ability to marshal these subjects into a single compelling narrative stunning

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.

The Military Geniuses Who Led The West To Victory In World War II

Masters and Commanders

Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses who led the West to Victory in WWII tells the story of how four great leaders fought each other over how best to fight Hitler. 
 
 During the Second World War the master strategy of the West was shaped by four titanic figures: Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, and their respective military commanders - General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each man was tough-willed and strong minded. And each was certain he knew best how to achieve victory. 
 
 Drawing on previously unpublished material, including for the first time verbatim reports of Churchill's War Cabinet meetings, Andrew Roberts's acclaimed history recreates with vivid immediacy the fiery debates and political maneuverings, the rebuffs and the charm, the explosive rows and dramatic reconciliations, as the masters and commanders of the Western Alliance fought each other over the best way to fight Adolf Hitler. 
 
 'History as it should be written; a gripping narrative' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Michael Gove, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year 
 
 'Scintillating historical writing on the whole rich panorama of Britain and the US at war' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Martin Gilbert, Evening Standard 
 
 'A compelling analysis of American and British military strategy during the war. He also tells a profoundly human story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Laurence Rees, Sunday Times 
 
 'A masterpiece' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Christopher Silvester, Daily Express 
 
 'Britain's finest contemporary military historian' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist Books of the Year 
 
 Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose previous books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction; Napoleon and Wellington (2001); Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), which coincided with four-part BBC2 history series, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (2005).

Masters and Commanders describes how four titanic figures shaped the grand strategy of the West during the Second World War. Each was exceptionally tough-willed and strong minded, and each was certain that he knew best how to win the war. Yet each knew that he had to win at least two of the others over in order to get his strategy adopted. The book traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations which resulted.

Andrew Roberts

George, Roberts writes, "more than filled the role of King of Great Britain worthily; he filled it nobly". After reading this mammoth, elegant and splendidly researched biography, no open-minded reader could possibly disagree - not even an American.

'Andrew Roberts is our most prodigious biographer ... His demolition of the authors of the Declaration's case against George III is elegant and comprehensive.

Magisterial ... George III is notorious for two reasons: losing America and going mad. Roberts provides a fresh and spirited account of both occurrences ... Roberts's fundamentally humane approach to his biographical subjects ... treats George III with as much respect and compassion when sick, blind and deaf as when powerful at the promising start of his reign. The result is a lengthy book that remains engaging throughout.

powerful ... a very fine book ... This book should be read by every American whose interest in history goes beyond the feel-good. It is challenging, but richly evidenced and scrupulously argued. ... Coming after his powerful studies of Halifax, Salisbury, Napoleon and Churchill, it consolidates Roberts's position as one of the greatest biographers in the English language today.

If not for such fierce competition (in the form of such works as Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Churchill: Walking with Destiny and Masters &amp; Commanders) one might be able to unequivocally say that George III is the author's masterpiece. This biography teems with detail, ideas and elegance. Roberts is a great writer - and this is one of his greatest achievements. Roberts sets himself a goal, that of challenging or overturning certain misconceptions that we might harbour about his subject. That George III was a tyrant, unintelligent and a victim of porphyria. Suffice to say, Roberts achieves his goal: mission impossible turns into mission accomplished. Roberts convinces through both persuasive prose and hard evidence (as opposed to just supposition). ... magnificent

George may become Britain's best-understood monarch, thanks to this impressive new biography. It is unashamedly revisionist. ... Roberts's account is masterly, combining a compelling narrative - one has to keep turning the pages even though one knows the outcome - with analysis that is both cogent and incisive. He appears to have read everything that is in the mainstream and much that isn't, including a wide range of archival sources. ... [George III] has had to wait two centuries for rehabilitation, but it has come at last. Roberts has got deep inside George and his world and has found a man of many sterling qualities. ... tremendous

In this magisterial life of George III, Roberts burnishes his stellar reputation as biographer and historian, dismantling many of the myths that have beset the memory of the man who ruled Britain and Ireland for almost sixty years from 1760. Roberts marshals the evidence meticulously and persuasively to show that George was nothing like the capricious, overbearing, intolerable figure of legend ... It is bracing, too, to see that Roberts has lost none of his disdain for the "Whig interpretation of history" - the comfort blanket of those who believe that Britain's story is one of the steady institutional defeat of autocracy by liberal incrementalism. Now at the top of his game, he has not surrendered the irreverent, revisionist tone that has made him one of the most important public intellectuals of our times.

This superb royal biography ... A book so diligently researched cannot fail to be rich in curious detail and amusing turns of phrase. There are plums on almost every page.

The strength of this generous new biography is that it correctly portrays George III as a dedicated, benevolent ruler , scrupulous in his constitutional role as head of government and head of state.

Andrew Roberts admires George III, and he is right to do so. The historical image of the king as a tyrant and a lunatic is not remotely true in the first case (a contention Roberts provides much evidence to substantiate) and true only for part of his reign in the second. ... A handsome and thorough biography ... but above all, Roberts has written a superlative political history of the period between 1760 and 1809.

he does his scholarly homework. This is a compendious product of intricate investigation. Roberts has read everything ... It is a magnificent achievement.

Andrew Roberts makes a strong revisionist case for the generally maligned George III in this engrossing, brilliant biography

As his outstanding books on Halifax, Salisbury and Churchill also demonstrate, he is a master of the biography. ... Roberts systematically, cogently and helpfully reinterprets his subject's role and reputation.

In this mammoth and meticulous biography, Andrew Roberts presents a compelling case for the defence of George III.

Such is Roberts's persuasive interpretation, supported by a wide range of sources and argued with keen insight into political realities. ... It must be hoped that Andrew Roberts's important, serious and timely book plays an appropriate role in the rethinking that can now hardly be avoided.

magnificent ... In Andrew Roberts, George has found his Boswell, but one with the wit and erudition of a Johnson. Britain's most misunderstood monarch he may have been, but this biographer has entered into this conscientious king's troubled mind with more than customary empathy.

Roberts harnesses a truly extraordinary amount of archival information to offer a comprehensive grasp of a rather tragic, thoroughly misunderstood king.

This outstanding new biography of George III is timely. The first of the Hanoverians to identify as British was mocked, slandered and vilified during his lifetime and is still regularly cited in the American media as the epitome of tyranny. Over the past two centuries historians have dismissed him as incompetent and despotic. Andrew Roberts has no time for such ill-founded nonsense. ... George has found a true champion in Andrew Roberts, who has ridden up gallantly to challenge unfounded prejudice. ... This impressively researched and scholarly account of the King's life and travails is compulsively readable and, in its tragic end, deeply moving. It is full of fascinating detail, insightful vignettes and vivid local colour.

Andrew Roberts's mighty Life, drawing on masses of unseen papers locked up in Windsor Castle, turns on its head the lazy idea of George III as a tyrant halfwit...every page is entertaining

This hefty book - elegantly written, the fruit of extensive research - is the case for the defence of Britain's "most misunderstood monarch".

Deeply researched, it ranges with equal authority from his private life to the military history of the American War of Independence; its tenacious fairness towards its subject gives it the sort of polemical edge that one finds in revisionist history at its best.

No other writer, except possibly Alan Bennett, has set out to make us love King George more. Or admire him more ... What makes Roberts's massive biographies so distinctively rewarding is that he provides the reader with enough evidence to undermine his own conclusions.

The book which impressed me most, and which I most enjoyed, this year is Andrew Roberts's George III. It is based on such astonishingly wide-ranging and original research that I felt I was reading about the period for the first time. Unknown facts and wonderful anecdotes had me turning the pages with a curiosity I seldom feel when reading about supposedly familiar events. Andrew Roberts is remarkably even-handed, and there is no special pleading on behalf of this genuinely misunderstood and wilfully misrepresented monarch who did his best to be a good constitutional ruler during a very choppy period in British history.

meticulously researched ... an eye-opening portrait of the man and his times

A deep, expansive study not only of George III but also of the political and social complexities of England and the United States during his reign.

a deeply textured portrait of George III [and] a capacious, prodigiously researched biography from a top-shelf historian.

an outstanding and surprisingly moving portrait of a misunderstood king, distinguished by refreshing revisionism but also illuminated by deep humanity.

Roberts is in a rich vein of form at present; after bestselling books on Napoleon and Churchill, yet another masterpiece has tumbled from his pen.

Roberts has been justly acclaimed as one of his generation's leading historians ... His new biography seeks to challenge popular myths about the monarch. ... Roberts, employing the same flair for original research and ability to convey historical context and vivid prose that he used in previous books ... thoroughly debunks all the assumptions most people have about the king.

exhaustively researched and written in accessible, non-jargony prose. Meticulous and forensic, it sometimes reads like a defense counsel's case for his client ... Roberts's defense of George III, though, is the fullest, the clearest, and likely to be the most definitive.

Roberts has painted a masterful portrait of a patriotic, diligent and cultivated monarch. ... This new biography is a treasure-house of detail. ... George III is an engaging, humane and at times beautiful testament to the importance of giving our ancestors a fair hearing.

The Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch

Andrew Roberts's magnificent new biography portrays George as intelligent, benevolent, scrupulously devoted to the constitution of his country and (as head of government as well as head of state) navigating the turbulence of eighteenth-century politics with a strong sense of honour and duty. He was a devoted husband and family man, a great patron of the arts and sciences, keen to advance Britain's agricultural capacity ('Farmer George') and determined that her horizons should be global. He could be stubborn and self-righteous, but he was also brave, brushing aside numerous assassination attempts, galvanising his ministers and generals at moments of crisis and stoical in the face of his descent - five times during his life - into a horrifying loss of mind. 
 
The book gives a detailed, revisionist account of the American Revolutionary War, persuasively taking apart a significant proportion of the Declaration of Independence, which Roberts shows to be largely Jeffersonian propaganda. In a later war, he describes how George's support for William Pitt was crucial in the battle against Napoleon. And he makes a convincing, modern diagnosis of George's terrible malady, very different to the widely accepted medical view and to popular portrayals. 
 
In presenting this fresh view of Britain's most misunderstood monarch, George III shows one of Britain's premier historians at his sparkling best.

Andrew Roberts

Praise for George III

George, Roberts writes, "more than filled the role of King of Great Britain worthily; he filled it nobly". After reading this mammoth, elegant and splendidly researched biography, no open-minded reader could ...

'Andrew Roberts is our most prodigious biographer ... His demolition of the authors of the Declaration's case against George III is elegant and comprehensive.

Magisterial ... George III is notorious for two reasons: losing America and going mad. Roberts provides a fresh and spirited account of both occurrences ... Roberts's fundamentally humane approach to his ...

George, Roberts writes, "more than filled the role of King of Great Britain worthily; he filled it nobly". After reading this mammoth, elegant and splendidly researched biography, no open-minded reader could ...

'Andrew Roberts is our most prodigious biographer ... His demolition of the authors of the Declaration's case against George III is elegant and comprehensive.

Magisterial ... George III is notorious for two reasons: losing America and going mad. Roberts provides a fresh and spirited account of both occurrences ... Roberts's fundamentally humane approach to his ...

George, Roberts writes, "more than filled the role of King of Great Britain worthily; he filled it nobly". After reading this mammoth, elegant and splendidly researched biography, no open-minded reader could ...

'Andrew Roberts is our most prodigious biographer ... His demolition of the authors of the Declaration's case against George III is elegant and comprehensive.

Magisterial ... George III is notorious for two reasons: losing America and going mad. Roberts provides a fresh and spirited account of both occurrences ... Roberts's fundamentally humane approach to his ...

Books by Andrew Roberts

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