Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm
If you want just one book that will show how this flood of new material can transform a story you thought you knew, while at the same time keeping you gripped like a page-turner novel, buy TRAFALGAR by Tim Clayton and Phil Craig. Observer Excellent...comprehensively researched, vividly written and judiciously argued. Wonderfully detailed pen portraits...Much new material from French and Spanish sources gives a rounded picture...compelling. Clayton and Craig have written about conflict before and it shows. Saul David, Daily Telegraph One of the book's greatest strengths is the attention paid to the "perfect storm" that began only hours after the fighting had stopped and gave rise to incredible acts of heroism and self-sacrifice. Glasgow Herald Clayton and Craig...have found, among a great trove of participants' vivid letters and diaries, support for a revisionist approach to the Trafalgar legend The Sunday Times The most fluent account of Trafalgar for a generation Ships Telegraph Vivid and compelling...an account of significant importance. Naval Review A magnificent account of the battle itself, including a detailed analysis of the storm that might well have wiped out the British fleet after victory had been won, had it not been for superb seamanship. Guardian 'My book of the year is TRAFALGAR ... a gripping account of the events of l805. The characters from both the British and Combined fleets are drawn with such understanding and sympathy that the full horror of the battle became all the more vivid as many of those I'd come to admire were sliced in half by cannon balls or disembowelled by chain-shot and splinters. the story that followed was as monstruos as the fighting that preceded it. The tactics and movements of sea battles are notoriously difficult to explain, but the authors draw the geography of the action with expert clarity.' Harry Enfield's in Mail on Sunday