|
Death or Victory
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Many of us wondered whether Dan Snow could make the transition from fluent TV presenter to serious historian. This hugely impressive work confirms his triumphant arrival on the scene. It is by far the best account yet written of a campaign that helped shape North America, and is a fitting tribute on the 250th anniversary of that “wonderful year” 1759' Richard Holmes
"Dan Snow is perhaps more familiar from television….this, his first book, proves him to be a master military historian in the making. Its grasp of detail is prodigious" Daily Express
"Lively and thoughtful…fascinating stuff….one of the book's strengths is its vivid portrayal of the physical backdrop against which the campaign unfolded" Literary Review
Product Description
An epic history of the battle of Quebec, the death of General James Wolfe and the beginnings of Britain’s empire in North America. Military history at its best.
Perched on top of a tall promontory, surrounded on three sides by the treacherous St Lawrence River, Quebec – in 1759 France’s capital city in Canada – forms an almost impregnable natural fortress. That year, with the Seven Years’ War raging around the globe, a force of 49 ships and nearly 9,000 men commanded by the irascible General James Wolfe, navigated the river, scaled the cliffs and laid siege to the town in an audacious attempt to expel the French from North America forever.
In this magisterial first solus book, tying into the 250th anniversary of the battle, Dan Snow tells the story of this famous campaign which was to have far-reaching consequences for Britain’s rise to global hegemony, and the world at large. Snow brilliantly sets the battle within its global context and tells a gripping tale of brutal war quite unlike any fought in Europe, where terrain, weather and native Canadian tribes were as fearsome as any enemy. ‘I never served so disagreeable a campaign as this,’ grumbled one British commander, ‘it is war of the worst shape.’
1759 was, without question, a year in which the decisions of men changed the world forever. Based on original research and told from all perspectives, this is history – military, political, human – on an epic scale.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Dan Snow, son of Peter the swingometer man, has written a very tidy history of the battle of Quebec which led to the English takeover of North America. An excellent book, quite scholarly, but a good read if you'e not French. If you are French it's still a good read, but the end is less fun.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Death or Victory: The Battle of Quebec and the Birth of Empire by Dan Snow is a very good book dealing with the battle of Quebec whose outcome made sure that North America spoke English rather than French. It is well-written, fast-paced, insightful (for example the fact that British naval skill and dominance was the key to victory because it gave the British army a mobility that their opponnents lacked or that General Wolfe, the original imperial hero was not liked by his fellow officers and seemed to have a very difficult personality) and it challenges some of the well-known myths about the battle. However, one minor criticism is that it perhaps fcuses too much on the British rather than the French. Overall though it is a very, very good book and well worth reading.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This first book by Dan Snow offers an in-depth account of the fighting for Quebec as part of the British campaign to wrest Canada from the French Empire in 1759. Overall it's a very good account, well researched and nicely presented. The author provides a 'warts-and-all' view of all the main characters, British, French & Canadian and offers a non-biased view of the events. He also goes into some detail in setting the scene for the climatic battle on the Plains of Abraham under the walls of Quebec.
If you have no previous exposure to this battle or this period of history the author provides some interesting information on how soldiers and sailors moved, drilled, ate, fought and died. The level of detail is not excessive and does not detract from the story nor distract the reader from the narrative unless you already have some prior knowledge of this period.
Four maps are provided at the start of the book although I think more detailed maps could have been provided. There are a number of nice colour plates (33) that add to the narrative and some that I have not seen before. So in just over 420 pages of text you come away from this book with a better understanding of the events leading up to this famous battle, what happened on the Plains of Abraham and what happened after the smoke cleared.
Overall it's a good story, well told by the author, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who hasn't previously read anything about this battle. Having said that, to me, it doesn't appear to add anything new to my understanding of the events of 1759.
'I remember/That born under the lily/I grew under the rose'
If you have no previous exposure to this battle or this period of history the author provides some interesting information on how soldiers and sailors moved, drilled, ate, fought and died. The level of detail is not excessive and does not detract from the story nor distract the reader from the narrative unless you already have some prior knowledge of this period.
Four maps are provided at the start of the book although I think more detailed maps could have been provided. There are a number of nice colour plates (33) that add to the narrative and some that I have not seen before. So in just over 420 pages of text you come away from this book with a better understanding of the events leading up to this famous battle, what happened on the Plains of Abraham and what happened after the smoke cleared.
Overall it's a good story, well told by the author, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who hasn't previously read anything about this battle. Having said that, to me, it doesn't appear to add anything new to my understanding of the events of 1759.
'I remember/That born under the lily/I grew under the rose'
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
DAN SNOW
If you want a book that is both historically sound and academically correct and yet thoroughly entertaining then this is it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by mikeet
Great book but slightly disappoints at the end.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, and it covers a key conflict in British history that has been relatively neglected, especially considering it was such a pivotal moment (something... Read more
Published 8 months ago by BHA till I die
BRILL!!
If you're in any way interested in British/English history then this is a MUST read.
The book is fantastic and really well researched and written by Dan. Read more
The book is fantastic and really well researched and written by Dan. Read more
Published 9 months ago by S. J. Burt
Death or Victory
A well researched and comprehensive view of General Wolf and his army's occupation and battle for Quebec. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Steve
Admirable work - awful cover
Mr Snow has produced an extremely engaging, well-written and impressively referenced work on Wolfe's Quebec campaign. Read more
Published on 10 April 2010 by Kentspur
Death or Victory: The Battle of Quebec and the Birth of the Empire by...
This is an excellent account on the history of Quebec, carefully researched and well written by Dan Snow, a young historian with that wonderful knack of having a lucid writing... Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2009 by Bumble
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Search Customer Discussions
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
