Hardback
Izabela the Valiant: The Story of an Indomitable Polish Princess
By Adam Zamoyski
A brilliant excavation of the life of bestselling historian Adam Zamoyski’s great-great-great-great grandmother, a princess and pioneer of education who created the first museum in Poland.
This is an unknown history brought to startling light for the first time. Izabela the Valiant is a story of a vulnerable but resilient women caught up in extraordinary events – a story that must be told.
In the late 18th century, Europe sat at a crossroads, the formerly rococo world shattered by the French Revolution and then transformed by Napoleon’s agenda. Social values, the religious landscape, the positions of royalty were morphing. Izabela is a fascinating route into this world; buffeted by conflicting forces, her life provides an insight into what these changes meant for real people living through them. Inherited values and conventional notions of honour and loyalty to the throne were challenged by the new doctrine of sacrifice in the service of the nation. The sentimentality and pragmatism of the eighteenth century morphed respectively into the Romantic movement and a new realpolitik.
By following this creative, forward-thinking woman who sat at the centre of power and held many important men’s affections, Zamoyski’s charming and engrossing biography will open up a stormy period of late eighteenth, early nineteenth century Polish history.
PRAISE FOR NAPOLEON: -
‘Napoleon is an out-and-out masterpiece and a joy to read’Antony Beevor -
‘The emperor has had few biographers who address this shooting star with Zamoyski’s narrative power and nuanced judgment’Max Hastings, Sunday Times -
‘Zamoyski’s research is meticulous, his writing sublime…. This is probably one of the truest biographies of Napoleon…. this book undoubtedly needed to be written’Gerard DeGroot, The Times -
‘The real value of this wonderful biography - elegantly written, exhaustively researched and compellingly argued - is the insight it gives us into Napoleon the Man’Saul David, Daily Telegraph -
‘The refreshing distinction of Zamoyski as a biographer is that he humanises Bonaparte…In portraying the person behind the many myths that have accrued around his name, Zamoyski acts as a skilful picture-restorer, scraping away layers of lies, exaggerations and misconceptions to reveal the man in his true, unvarnished colours’Nigel Jones, Spectator -
'Always elegant in style and original in analysis, Zamoyski, a master of the sources and the culture and politics that created his subject, produces a fresh, nuanced, beautifully written, gripping and outstanding biography of Napoleon’Simon Sebag-Montefiore -
'A lifetime's diligent research and profound thinking about Napoleon and his times has gone into this hugely readable, highly enjoyable and well-balanced biography. Zamoyski is at the top of his game as a biographer'Andrew Roberts -
'Adam Zamoyski has retold a story that we thought we knew and made it fresh. Stripping away two centuries of mythology, discarding the apocryphal stories and legends, he finally brings us the real Napoleon'Anne Applebaum -