"Gripping . . . a compelling story of personal hubris and humbling
defeat."
--Jack Weatherford, author of the "New York Times" bestseller
"Genghis Khan and the Making of the
Modern World "
In a masterful dual narrative that pits the heights of human
ambition and achievement against the supremacy of nature, "New York
Times" bestselling author Stephan Talty tells the story of a mighty
ruler and a tiny microbe, antagonists whose struggle would shape
the modern world.
In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his
powers. Forty-five million called him emperor, and he commanded a
nation that was the richest, most cultured, and advanced on earth.
No army could stand against his impeccably trained, brilliantly led
forces, and his continued sweep across Europe seemed inevitable.
Early that year, bolstered by his successes, Napoleon turned his
attentions toward Moscow, helming the largest invasion in human
history. Surely, Tsar Alexander's outnumbered troops would crumble
against this mighty force.
But another powerful and ancient enemy awaited Napoleon's men in
the Russian steppes. Virulent and swift, this microscopic foe would
bring the emperor to his knees.
Even as the Russians retreated before him in disarray, Napoleon
found his army disappearing, his frantic doctors powerless to
explain what had struck down a hundred thousand soldiers. The
emperor's vaunted military brilliance suddenly seemed useless, and
when the Russians put their own occupied capital to the torch, the
campaign became a desperate race through the frozen landscape as
troops continued to die by the thousands. Through it all, with
tragic heroism, Napoleon's disease-ravaged, freezing, starving men
somehow rallied, again and again, to cries of "Vive l'Empereur!"
Yet Talty's sweeping tale takes us far beyond the doomed heroics
and bloody clashes of the battlefield. "The Illustrious Dead"
delves deep into the origins of the pathogen that finally ended the
mighty emperor's dreams of world conquest and exposes this "war
plague's" hidden role throughout history. A tale of two unstoppable
forces meeting on the road to Moscow in an epic clash of killer
microbe and peerless army, "The Illustrious Dead" is a historical
whodunit in which a million lives hang in the balance.
"From the Hardcover edition."
General
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