Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST!
Review: A pure joy to read and then apply in wargaming! The most well described Napoleonic campaign. Excellently (! ) researched and very detailed.
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Summary: Long on Detail, Short on Fact
Review: At first glance the book appears to be a very detailed examination of the Grand Armee as it was constituted in 1805. However, upon deeper reading, this weighty tome reveals a superficiality that is deeply disturbing, particularly when the author characterizes himself as a foremost Napoleonic historian. Its very detail, right down to the color of the collar of the 14th Legere drum majors' dog, is its undoing. So much of the detail, particularly with respect to Allied forces, personalities and circumstances, is suspect, when it is not completely inaccurate. For example, the book continually ridicules the Allies for not using division columns and continually lauds the French for doing so. Indeed it strongly implies that lack of division columns contributed to the Allied defeat. The author does not seem to understand the period usages of the terms "company", "platon", "peloton", or "zug" in the context of a "division". Otherwise, he would know the Russians and Austrians (and everyone else) used columns of divisions since at least the 1780s. Tactical detail is trivialized by rather juvenile references to either the French "blowing through" opposing forces or Allied forces "vaporizing", without giving any meaningful situational analysis. This is very hard to understand since the primary sources contain a wealth of information on the battlefield evolutions of all the forces. One must conclude that, although cited, the source material was not read.
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Summary: The Best Description of the Ulm-Austerlitz Campaigns Around
Review: Bowden does a great job of describing these two campaigns in great detail while still allowing the book to be very readable. The frequent maps, illustrations, and photographs also add considerably to this classic. I greatly anticipate the author's sequal: Napoleon at Jena.
Rating:
Summary: Fine book.
Review: Bowden's Austerlitz is a fine book and I recommed it to everyone. Although author is rather anti-Russian his book is very good. After all he titled it "Napoleon and Austerlitz" and not "Tsar Alexander and Austerlitz". Right ? The amount of information is breath-taking, the maps are excellent and extremaly detailed showing even the positions of individual battalions and squadrons. This is hard to find in other books where one see only very general positions of troops, and only positions of armies and corps and divisions. The amount of illustrations and their quality is fascinating !
Rating:
Summary: Fine book.
Review: Bowden's Austerlitz is a fine book and I recommed it to everyone. Although author is rather anti-Russian his book is very good. After all he titled it "Napoleon and Austerlitz" and not "Tsar Alexander and Austerlitz". Right ? The amount of information is breath-taking, the maps are excellent and extremaly detailed showing even the positions of individual battalions and squadrons. This is hard to find in other books where one see only very general positions of troops, and only positions of armies and corps and divisions. The amount of illustrations and their quality is fascinating !
Rating:
Summary: Best English language study of Napoleon and Austerlitz
Review: Having read everything I can on Napoleon's 1805 Ulm-Austerlitz campaigns, I have to rank this work as the best. The details about the organization and tactics of the armies, combined with the specifics of the Ulm and the Austerlitz campaigns which include the very detailed tactical description of the fighting (especially the combats around Ulm) simply cannot be found anywhere else. What's more, the text is complimented by a great number of maps and artwork, making the layout what I wish every military history book looked like. It is a splendid work that deserves inclusion in any Napoleonic library. Oh, yes...a word about some of the "hit reviews" previously posted. I, too, have a copy of Sutterheim's 1807 English TRANSLATED piece on Austerlitz, and Scott Bowden is absolutely correct in his citation. Also, I had an opportunity to hear the author when he spoke in Hawai'i in 2002, and one of those talks included, in part, a detailed presentation on Napoleon. In that presentation, I saw a lot of the archival documents used by the author in putting together NAPOLEON AND AUSTERLITZ---documents that others making "hit reviews" say he never possessed. That speaks volumes about the credibility of those who posted those remarks. JS
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Summary: A Standard for Military History Production
Review: I am not an historian, but I love to read history and this book is the most reader friendly campaign account I have read, Napoleonic or any other period. Charts, pictures,and maps are in the wide margins on either side of the text, right where the eye can find them. Notes are on the bottom of the page. Maps are drawn clearly and easy to grasp, as are diagrams of unit movement, whether they be corps or battalions. It is a joy to read. Publishers take note.
Rating:
Summary: welcome change
Review: I think it is a welcome change to see a pro-french work about Napoleon. I'm tired of the British hegemony on world history and it is quite refreshing to hear a different side to history.
Rating: 
Summary: Wargamers Croon, Historians Cringe
Review: Mr. Bowden (while offering a good analysis of the Grande Armee in 1805), has done questionable research on both the armies of Russia and the Habsburg Dynasty. Without these components, it is impossible to write a meaningful account of Austerlitz and the actions that preceded it. This book is fare for wargaming hobbyists who primarily seek pictures, maps and orders of battle. For the scholarly enthusiast, a definitive work on 1805 has yet to be done.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant
Review: Mr.Bowden has come along way since the first book of his I purchased ( The Grande Armee of 1813). Not only do we have a really beautiful book, but also an informed and easy to read one. The initial chapters cover the political situation in Europe in 1805 and then the three armies involved. All are given reasonable space, but the French army tends to get the spotlight. The remainder of the book concentrates on the history of the campaign, and then an analysis. The book suffers from one flaw, one which he admits indirectly. The Italian and Tyrolian campaigns are only touched on. This is a shame, but Mr.Bowden is not alone in leaving out this area of operations. I sincerely hope one day an author will cover the campaigns of 1805,1809,1813-14 in this area. Overall a great book. BUY IT
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