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Bibliographies

In case anyone should be interested in the subject of Napoleon's 1796-7 campaign in Italy, the author has included the bibliography from his book The Road to Rivoli on the following pages. This lists a few hundred books and articles related to the subject of Napoleon's early career.

Go to the Rivoli bibliography >

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The first step for anyone beginning to study a particular historical subject is to make a comprehensive list of any books, articles and other sources of information which deal with it. This is where specialist bibliographies can be extremely useful. They are never complete, because new works are being published all the time, but the best bibliographies will alert readers to the existence of sources of material that they would probably never know about if they merely consulted their library catalogue.

Without question, the best modern bibliographies on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods are those edited by Ronald Caldwell. They are:

Caldwell, R. J. The Era of the French Revolution: A Bibliography of the History of Western Civilization, 1789-1799. Garland Publishing, New York, 1985, 2 vols

Caldwell, R. J. The Era of Napoleon: A Bibliography of the History of Western Civilization, 1799-1815. Garland Publishing, New York, 1991, 2 vols

These list tens of thousands of works, and serious students of the period will find them almost indispensable. However, they are not the kind of book to be found much outside university libraries, and it may be necessary to search to find copies for consultation.

A rather more common source, and one that is also very useful, is the bibliography edited by Donald Horward:

Horward, D. D., ed. Napoleonic Military History, a Bibliography. Greenhill Books, London, 1986

This is nowhere near as comprehensive as Caldwell's massive volumes, but has more than enough information for most of us.

Another extremely useful bibliographical source is to be found on the internet. It has been created by Patricia Teter, and is at http://napoleonic-literature.com/AgeOfNapoleon/index.html.

The search for rare books is now made easier by being able to access library catalogues over the internet. Those of you who are working in Britain may wish to consult the following:

The British Library -- http://catalogue.bl.uk

Cambridge University Library -- http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Catalogues/OPAC/

COPAC -- http://copac.ac.uk

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