Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of TrafalgarHarper Collins, 9 sie 2005 - 341 In Seize the Fire, Adam Nicolson, author of the widely acclaimed God's Secretaries, takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets in October 1805, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the heroic. Is violence a necessary aspect of the hero? And daring? Why did the cult of the hero flower in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a way it hadn't for two hundred years? Was the figure of Nelson—intemperate, charming, theatrical, anxious, impetuous, considerate, indifferent to death and danger, inspirational to those around him, and, above all, fixed on attack and victory—an aberration in Enlightenment England? Or was the greatest of all English military heroes simply the product of his time, "the conjurer of violence" that England, at some level, deeply needed? It is a story rich with modern resonance. This was a battle fought for the control of a global commercial empire. It was won by the emerging British world power, which was widely condemned on the continent of Europe as "the arrogant usurper of the freedom of the seas." Seize the Fire not only vividly describes the brutal realities of battle but enters the hearts and minds of the men who were there; it is a portrait of a moment, a close and passionately engaged depiction of a frame of mind at a turning point in world history. |
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... crews' safety. 'I consider the destruction of the Enemy's Fleet of so much consequence,' he had written within the last few months, 'that I would willingly have half of mine burnt to effect their destruction. I am in a fever. God send I ...
... crew. In some ways, that was all: a pack of dogs battened on to a flock of sheep. It is an easy description and in ... crews, about half of them there against their own will, prepared to accept the level of risk which their commanders ...
... crews, who are picked men, had got on board one of them, they would have taken her.' He was probably right. Navies reflect the societies from which they come and at Cadiz in October 1805, Villeneuve, the French commander, was in despair ...
... crews. On both sides, policy reinforced demography. In common with other European navies, the Spanish had more ships than ... crew of five hundred, the rest being fishermen and off coasting vessels 'without training or any understanding ...
... crews. There was one final element in Spanish naval tradition that would on the day secure their defeat. The navy itself, despite playing the essential role in the creation and maintenance of the Spanish overseas empire, on whose income ...
Spis treści
3 | |
Order and Anxiety | 49 |
Honour | 93 |
Love | 130 |
Boldness | 157 |
Violence | 209 |
Humanity | 239 |
Nobility | 275 |
bibliography | 319 |
index | 327 |
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Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar Adam Nicolson Ograniczony podgląd - 2009 |
Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar Adam Nicolson Podgląd niedostępny - 2006 |