We invite colleagues to attend a conference which explores the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as the first world war, a war which touched every continent of the globe. For the full programme and registration details,see our website http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cecs/conf/NBI.htm.

These wars saw the fatal weakening of the Dutch and the Spanish, and eventually the French empires, yet the continuing expansion of the British, Russian and North American empires. The impact of the warfare of the period can only be fully understood if this global dimension is given full weight.

This conference brings together scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds as well as those with specialised knowledge of the different geographical areas of these wars. Charting the experiences of the men and women engaged in the conflicts requires not only discussion of the conventional sources of military and political history, but critical examination of personal and autobiographical writings and their cultural and imaginative contexts. The visual dimension, in the representation of war in both high art and popular propaganda, is essential to the understanding of such contexts. The conference will also address the ways in which the wars were remembered and commemorated in their immediate aftermath, as new narratives of experience were constructed from different national perspectives.

Plenary speakers include Christopher Bayly (Cambridge), Laurent Dubois (Michigan State), Rebecca Earle (Warwick), Karen Hagemann (Chapel Hill), Geoff Quilley (Sussex), Miles Taylor (York), James Walvin (York).