Book description
The Battle of Trafalgar can claim to be one of the most known of the
great human events. In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson takes one of the
greatest identifiable heroes in British history, Horatio Nelson, and
examines the broader themes of heroism, violence and virtue.
Trafalgar gripped the nineteenth century imagination like no other
battle: it was a moment of both transcendent fulfilment and unmatched
despair. It was a drama of such violence and sacrifice that the concept
of total war may be argued to start from there. It finished the global
ambitions of a European tyrant but culminated in the death of Admiral
Horatio Nelson, the greatest hero of the era.
This book fuses the immediate intensity of the battle with the deeper
currents that were running at the time. It has a three-part framework:
the long, slow six hour morning before the battle; the afternoon itself
of terror, death and destruction; and the shocked, exultant and sobered
aftermath, which finds its climax at Nelson's funeral in a snowy London
the following January.
Adam Nicolson examines the concept of heroes and heroism, both then and
now, using Nelson as one of the greatest examples. A man of complexity
and contradiction, he was a supreme administrator of ships and men;
overflowing with humanity, charm and love but also capable of
astonishing ruthlessness and ferocity. Nelson's own courage, vanity,
ruthlessness and sweetness made him one of the great identifiable heroes
of English history.
In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson also traces the stories of many unknown
people of the day. He tackles the grand theme of heroism; the move from
the age of reason to the age of romanticism; and examines a battle that
was not only a uniquely well-documented crisis in human affairs but also
a lens on its own time. Adam Nicolson does not approach Trafalgar as a
military historian. His book gives a wonderfully immediate recreation of
both the battle itself and its aftermath in a rich, concrete and
intellectually engaging style. Praise for Adam Nicolson and his books:
'Nicolson writes so well, with such modesty and deep feeling, that the
book fairly sings in your hands.' Daily Telegraph
'Exceptionally well done, beautifully written, personal yet panoramic' Observer
'An extraordinarily outward-looking book… a truly passionate attention
to detail…. A love-letter no one else could hope to write so well.'
Sunday Telegraph
'A passionate evocation, a compression of observation and anecdote
which catches you up in its intelligence as well as its enthusiasm, and
fill you with homesickness for a place you've never been to.' Daily Telegraph
'Generous, exuberant and a vividly written narrative…. history,
travel-writing and memoir of the best sort.' Spectator
'Sharply observed, a finely written work, one to be savoured, turned
over and over like a good whisky.'
Sunday Times Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history,
travel and the environment. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award
and the British
Topography Prize and lives on a farm in Sussex.
