Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797

Book Description

The most authoritative and captivating account ever written of legendary British naval commander Horatio Nelson's early career and rise to prominence

Among military and naval commanders, Horatio Nelson stands as one of the finest examples of inspirational leadership. The historian John Sugden charts the period of Nelson's career neglected by earlier writers-from childhood to his breathtaking victory against the Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent when he became an admiral, lost an arm, and won international fame. Like Alexander of Macedon, Nelson led from the front (not always a sensible custom). But he was a natural leader and a genuine hero, and his actions invariably raised his stock with his men, who trusted him as a commander willing to share their dangers.

Nelson combines groundbreaking scholarship with a vivid and compelling narrative style. Detailing every facet of Nelson's crowded life, the author offers the only full account of Nelson's early voyages and the first complete analysis of the formative incidents in his career. Throughout there are revealing and startling discoveries about Nelson's relationships with family, patrons, officers, and men-and with his women. Previous biographies have failed to penetrate the mythology encrusting one of the world's greatest naval heroes, and none has been based on a thorough examination of original sources.

Nelson will immediately become the benchmark against which all subsequent books about Nelson will be judged. It is a biography of the best sort: compelling, authoritative, and thrillingly alive.

Customer Reviews:

England's Greatest Naval Hero.......2006-09-09

There are possibly more books on the shelves of bookshops (certainly in England) about Nelson than any other English hero and because of the recent anniversary of Trafalgar many more have either been written or re-printed. How does the reader pick one out from the rest. Well my own recommendation would be to buy this particular volume,

In the historical time scale, Nelson lived and died in the fairly recent past, so many of the books written about him are only regurgitated facts that have never been checked properly, or may have no foundation in factual terms. John Sugden has left no stone unturned in his quest for the truth, not only about the public persona of the man, but also gives a brilliant insight into the life of the private man. His hopes, his fears, his weaknesses and his strengths.

John Sugden's writing style is both lively and stylish and does not leave the reader feeling overpowered with dull facts that he or she cannot take on board. Yes the book is a historical work, but it is written with a sensitive touch that almost makes the reader think they are reading an adventure novel. This is achieved without prostituting the historical content in any way. I enjoyed it immensely.

Excellent.......2006-07-03

This is a very detailed biography of Nelson, the best that I have read. It really deserves a high rating.

At almost 800 pages of narrative and 943 pages total, you really get your money's worth here (if money was an issue). It's thicker than your phone book if you're from Montana or the Dakotas. Heck, it's almost as thick as my Seattle phone book. And after reading it, my wrist muscles have become curiously strong.

What I like about it:

It is very detailed, this author really has spent the time to do the research and read the correspondences and contemporary accounts, it's no summary of already written books. That's very heroic in itself. I have a feeling that it's one of those rare books where academia is it's own reward and not just the profits, not that a biography of Nelson is going to be a bestseller (Maybe would have been in 1806).

Gives a very good feel of what Nelson was like as a person and professionally. All over the book Sugden gives us his impressions of Nelson and backs it up with correspondence and notes from either him or the people he dealt with.

Discussed his personal life in some detail, which is good because many other authors glossed over it, especially historical authors who had certain limits of decorum.

Gives a very good background of the naval service in Nelson's day and the political situation, that in itself was worth reading the book for. In fact, I can also say that it's the best description of the Royal Navy and the political situation from the naval services point of view at that time that I've ever read - not only informative, but serves as a backdrop of how Nelson developed and why he did the things he did.

When some things could not be explained, he did explain that no accounts or correspondence could be found to explain it.

This is not a book for the amateur. For the serious reader, the detail is what makes the book so absorbing, I revel in the detail, keep it coming. This book is not exceptionally easy to read. Again, serious readers will not find that a hurdle. For readers looking for a lighter (and shorter book) a search through Amazon will give you a lot of hits - just look for one about 100 pages long.

The minor negatives of the book
1) Some of the minutae was too minute, however, I easily skipped over those small parts. For a book of this caliber, better to have too much (which I can always skip over) rather than to have too little.
2) I wished that some actions were described in more detail, but perhaps there were no good accounts.
3) I wish there were some more maps and maybe some diagrams, but this ain't a picture book.

Overall, a very, very good biography. Highly, highly recommended. I look forward to part two. Meanwhile, some wrist strengtening exercises with the barbells.

Good, but just when things started getting exciting...........2006-06-28

As we know, not all history books are alike. Many are dry, while others try to make it interesting by either making stuff up or writing like Tom Clancy. Sugden does a good job of engaging the reader with interesting narrative, while clearly distinguishing facts from conjecture. You definitely get a taste for Nelson's charm, drive, as well as foibles. There is a lot of maritime terminology, but if you're interested enough to read an 800-page book about a naval hero, you can probably handle an occasional trip to the dictionary.
So I found the book very exciting, but I have one major complaint. The author claims to aspire to make this book the new definitive Nelson biography. He tells in great detail his glories of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, and then his great failure at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he lost his arm. Nelson gets really depressed, and returns to England. Then there is a conclusion of his career. Sugden observes that even though Nelson was depressed at the time, and likely to retire, no one could have imagined what glories were still ahead. The end.
How can you have a definitive Nelson book, 800 pages long, and not include the Battle of Trafalgar? Argh! Admittedly, the vook title tells it right there, since these things happened after 1797. But if you're reading the book to learn about these things, well, you get the idea. I guess I'll have to read a different book to discover why his statue is in Trafalgar Square...
NOTE: Rumor has it this is part one, and supposedly Sugden will be writing another book, to tell the rest of the story.

Definately Not Boring.......2006-02-23

Its difficult for me to improve on the several excellent reviews of this work that have preceded mine. But most importantly I want to state quite categorically that this is not a boring book. Biographies by their nature are not action stories, they must discuss periods of their subjects life that are perhaps bland and slow, but without this our understanding of the person would be incomplete. Nelson was not solely defined by his actions in the great naval engagements in which he fought.

Nelson was a fascinating bundle of contradictions, self serving and adulterous, disparaging of superiors he perceived as inept yet immensely loyal to able subordinates, devoted to his country, and personally courageous. He was a man who embodied the fighting spirit of the Royal Navy at the peak of its prowess and whose methods of warfare continued to influence the navy for another century.

I await the second volume of this work with great expectations.

A Relentless Bore.......2006-01-26

This is a truly awful book. Sugden writes well enough, and no doubt the book is AUTHORITATIVE, but anyone looking to be entertained should simply forget it. The author never met a detail he didn't like, but by the end of this book, the reader will have met more than he can count. Simply put, Sugden goes into such detail about so many insignificant and downright dull matters that he loses any sense of perspective and entirely fails to creat an interesting and READABLE account of a truly interesting life. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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Nelson a Dream of Glory 1758 1797
John Sugden
Manufacturer: HOLT, HENRY @ & CO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N71W3E

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe

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groundbreaking history of printing
the last 2 chapters were my favorite
Less then invigorating
Read the *unabridged version*|
Astute, insightful scholarship on a crucial topic.

The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521607744

Book Description

What difference did printing make? Although the importance of the advent of printing for the Western world has long been recognized, it was Elizabeth Eisenstein in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition provides a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. After summarizing the initial changes, and introducing the establishment of printing shops, it considers how printing effected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. First Edition Hb (1984) 0-521-25858-8 First Edition Pb (1984) 0-521-27735-3

Customer Reviews:

groundbreaking history of printing .......2005-06-29

Little was understood about the relationship of printing to the social movements of the Early Modern period before Elizabeth Eisenstein seized on the opportunity to give an in depth treatment to the history of printing in Europe in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. In addressing a void in the field of communications history, Eisenstein has provided new clues and new answers for old questions. At the same time, the very method of taking printing as a principal historical force creates some tensions in the historical account. The conception of printing as a revolution gives to communications and history some useful observations while also producing some particular problems.
This book is an abridged version of Eisenstein's 1979 The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. While that was a two volume work, the material has been condensed in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe into two sections each paralleling a volume of the full-scale work. The sense that the later book, first published in 1983, is for a more general audience is most evident in the lack of citations and references. One is directed to the original for these. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe has also included for this audience wonderful illustrations, which are not in the original.
The research for this work arose from the scholar's feeling that inquiry of this kind simply had not been done. Eisenstein had encountered historians and communications scholars who encouraged her to question the consequences of print. Her attempts to explore these questions through the literature on the shift from script to print in her own field made the lack of study glaringly obvious: there was no historical literature, nor a literature in any other field, manifestly exploring print in its relationship to contemporary social formations and movements.
There had been a number of others before Eisenstein who had recognized that printing was somehow important. However, no one before Eisenstein set about the task of describing why and how printing related to other social changes (5). Eisenstein accounts for this startling lack of historical work, describing an instance when Pierce Butler implied that there was something obvious about the relationship between print and the end of medieval times, by saying that "[t]his is partly because the very act of drawing connections is not as easy a task as one might think" (111). Throughout the book she makes references to the idea that historians and others knew that there were "implications" of print, but did not understand them in any substantive way.
Eisenstein sets a reasonable goal in the face of a dearth of research. While much needs to be done, Eisenstein's work is to be a first step into examining the consequences of the shift from script to print. She is clear that this is a beginning, a place to start to understand what changes in the fifteenth century and onward are related to print and how they are related. The book is not meant to fill the void in scholarship but to outline the questions and suggest areas for further study.
The revolutionary character of print is due, in part, to the greatly increased access to texts that printing afforded over manuscripts. Greater access came from the ability to produce many copies of a text at once, which simply made more texts available, as well as to the wider dispersion that printing allowed (42). A scholar in his home could have copies of many texts by the time of Copernicus' death. A scholar could have a library of his own by 1560 (208). Even the unschooled could have a bible in his home in his own language, through the interaction of printing with the move to the vernacular.
While other scholars had remarked on the greater dispersion of texts made possible by print, made particularly visible in studies of Protestantism, another more important attribute was less visible. Eisenstein argues that "typographical fixity" was a new and crucial effect of the printing press (xi). The notion of typographical fixity is one of the key elements in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Eisenstein argues that the preservative powers of print delivered information to readers in a whole new way, thus allowing scientific and cultural developments to unfold as they did.
Some Renaissance scholars noted this effect, but no one studied the implications this standardization had. "By and large, the effects of this new process are vaguely implied rather than explicitly defined and are also drastically minimized" (42). In chapter five, Eisenstein argues that one implication of typographical fixity was to make what we now call the Renaissance "permanent" whereas two earlier classical revivals had come and gone (117). Here is another example of scholars skimming a print-related topic which yields a new analysis when Eisenstein fully examines it from the vantage point of print.
Eisenstein's persuasive arguments go a long way to establishing the importance of printing. She argues that a fully developed history of printing as it relates to social change has been neglected and demonstrates that once attention is placed on the printing press, old puzzles are solved. One wonders if the case is not somewhat overstated, however, through the particular view of history Eisenstein develops. This is a version of history skewed to look at the printing press as an agent of historical change. For Eisenstein, it is necessarily skewed, first, to correct the inattention of scholars to the importance of print then to explain cultural and intellectual movements. However, the very explanations that arise from her discussion of the printing press may be more due to the interpretation made possible by focussing on printing in history. Eisenstein convinces us that printing has been overlooked and that it is important, but the next step she takes, to argue that printing has a "revolutionary character," is intertwined with her very standpoint which is focussed on the centrality of printing.

the last 2 chapters were my favorite.......2003-07-31

This is an excellent book to read if you are interested in the history of printing. Eisenstein's thesis is that the advent of the printing press is the most logical point at which the medieval period of European history ends and the Renaissance begins. She shows how many so-called innovations in science, religion, and politics were directly related to the ready availability of books-not necessarily to increased brilliance on the part of mankind.

Eisenstein disagrees with scholars who point to the lag between the press and the beginning of the Renaissance as proof that the press did not make an appreciable difference. Books, Eisenstein says, had to accumulate in order to make their presence felt. The lag was due to a sort of scholarly catch-up. First the printers rushed to issue the volumes that many people wanted but had been unable to afford previously. Once those were printed, disparities could become apparent. Scribes freed from the tedious process of copying books had the leisure to notice errors and disagreements among authors which had not been apparent when books were scattered and rare. This process caused a deceptive lag between the advent of the press and real improvements in cartography and science.

The last two chapters of the book were the most interesting to me. Among other things, Eisenstein talks about the way early Protestant printers beefed out their catalogues by referring to the Catholic Index (the list of books forbidden by the Pope). Once Europe became split into Catholic and Protestant nations, the Index had the unexpected effect of boosting sales for books listed on the Index, making some protestant printers their fortunes. Not only were Protestants eager to read whatever the Pope had banned (and Catholic priests obligingly cited chapter and line of objectionable material, with the result that the protestant scholars were able to cut right to the chase), but many early scientific books on the Index were much sought after in Catholic countries, and with their printers under heavy pressure to forbear, Protestant printers just over the border made a fortune in black-market books.

Eisenstein's style is somewhat pedantic (which was to be expected; this is a thesis, after all). However, I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 because quotes are frequently uncited-a nearly unforgivable sin in a research book. We are frequently given rather large blocks of quoted text with absolutely no way of connecting this material to any given authors in the bibliography. The fact that the book is an abridgement is no excuse.

Less then invigorating.......2001-11-08

I found Eisensten's book to be less then invigorating. She manages to contradict herself within the first five pages and is quite set on the fact that nobody seems to document the effect of the printing press. We were forced to read this awful piece of literature for my Renaissance, Reformation, and Revolution class. With every assignment we tried to grasp what exactly Eisenstein was trying to say without any luck. I would not recommend this torture to anyone. She's just a psycho lady in love with the printing press.

Read the *unabridged version*|.......1999-10-10

This book is fine, but it doesn't really capture the full power of the unabridged version: "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change" (2 vols in 1; Cambridge Univ. Press -- possibly currently out of print). The unabridged version (which is still much too short!) is one of the great books of the 20th century. I just didn't see the abridged versino as really "bringing home" the significance of Eisenstein's theses about the effects of print technology on Western civilization.

Astute, insightful scholarship on a crucial topic........1998-09-28

Professor Eisenstein has answered a question I have been asking myself for thirty years. I knew that "modern" Europe consisted of institutions based upon the "individual" -- protestantism, capitalism, universal education and modern science -- and that these first arose in Europe about 500 years ago. But I could not answer why then? And why Europe? I suspected that it had to do with the rise of stranger experience but could not locate a convincing historical cause for it. Print literacy first occured to me as the cause when I read Walter Ong's book, "Orality and Literacy," which also happily cited Prof. Eisenstein's work. Her book convincingly implicates the print revolution with the rise of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and Modern Science.Her thesis made it easy for me to see how the other three institutions could be included as well and to see the role of print in spreading "individuation" and assumptions associated with it, such as the idea of progress. It is remarkable that historians have apparently ignored for so long the role of print literacy in creating modernity. Scholars, including myself, sometimes seem to find the obvious the most inscrutable. Anyway, my personal and heartfelt thanks go to Professor Eisenstein for answering my nagging question.

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The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
Manufacturer: Cambridge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LZIK60

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