This work seeks to offer a new way of viewing the French Wars of
1792-1815. Most studies of this period offer international, political,
and military analyses using the French Revolution and Napoleon as the
prime mover. But this book focuses on military and civilian responses to
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, throughout the rest of Europe
and the Americas. It shows how the unprecedented mobilization of this
era forged a generation of soldiers and civilians sharing a common
experience of suffering, bequeathing the West with a new veteran
sensibility. Using a range of sources, especially memoirs, this book
reveals the adventure and suffering confronting ordinary soldiers
campaigning in Europe and the Americas, and the burdens imposed on
civilians enduring rising and falling empires across the West. It also
reveals how the wars liberated slaves, serfs, and common people through
revolutions and insurgencies.