‘Napoleon: the path to power’
A Sydney Writers’ Festival umbrella event with author Philip Dwyer at the S.H. Ervin Gallery and Sydney Observatory
6:30pm to 9pm
Saturday 21 May
200 years after Napoleon was at the height of power, we will come closer to his character through author Philip Dwyer whose book, ‘Napoleon, 1769-1799: the path to power’, was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s award for non-fiction in 2008 and won the National Biography Award that year. This story is of local interest in that recent archaeological excavations have found French flints from the Napoleonic era at Sydney Observatory’s Fort Phillip.
The evening begins at the S.H. Ervin Gallery, with wine, nibbles and viewing of the Salon Des Refuses. Then Associate Professor Philip Dwyer will discuss his research, followed by book signing (books are available on the night). The evening concludes at Sydney Observatory where we will visit Fort Phillip, see the astronomical collection of Wellington’s timekeeper and astronomer, Sir Thomas MakDougal Brisbane, and view Saturn through a telescope (weather permitting).
Cost (includes parking, wine and nibbles): $32 adults, $30 conc., $28 Members of the National Trust, Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Writers’ Festival. Phone: 9921 3485 or book online.
About the author
Associate Professor Philip Dwyer studied in Perth, Berlin and Paris, where he was a student of France’s pre-eminent Napoleonic scholar, Jean Tulard. He has published widely on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, and is the editor of ‘Napoleon and Europe’, the author of ‘Talleyrand’, and has co-edited ‘Napoleon and His Empire: Europe, 1804-1814’. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Newcastle, and is working on the second volume of his biography of Napoleon.
