` Fascinating... Shot through with fresh insights... No previous biography has attempted anything so comprehensive.` Observer Nelson is a thrilling new appraisal of Horatio Nelson,  the greatest practitioner of naval command the world has ever seen. It explores the professional,  personal,  intellectual & practical origins of one man`s genius,  to understand how the greatest warrior that Britain has ever produced transformed the art of conflict,  & enabled his country to survive the challenge of total war & international isolation. In Nelson,  Andrew Lambert
- described by David Cannadine as `the outstanding British naval historian of his generation`
- is able to offer new insights into the individual quality which led Byron rightly to celebrate Nelson`s genius as ` Britannia`s God of War`. He demonstrates how Admiral Nelson elevated the business of naval warfare to the level of the sublime. Nelson`s unique gift was to take that which other commanders found complex,  & reduce it to simplicity. Where his predecessors & opponents saw a particular battle as an end in itself,  Nelson was always a step ahead
- even in the midst of terrifying,  close-quarters action,  with officers & men struck down all around him. ` Excellent... Worthy of the stirring events [it celebrates].` Independent