Of all the Napoleonic expeditions, none remains as interesting as his conquest and ultimate failure in the land of the Pyramids. His intended prize was the overland route to India, already a commercial jewel and on the road itself to becoming part of an empire.

Paul Strathern's Bonaparte in Egypt: The Greatest Glory (Cape, £20) beautifully covers the whole gamut of operations - the defeat of the Mamelukes, Nelson's outstanding naval victory on the Nile, the artistic triumph of the savants in Napoleon's entourage.

Strathern concentrates to a deep degree on Napoleon's military adventures which creates a stunning book in itself.

However, the glory is really preserved for the discoveries made by the flower of French culture, who assailed the Western world with news of desert treaures previously unknown.

As for the soldiers, in typical fashion, the young Bonaparte abandoned them to their fate a long way from home - a foretaste of his winter retreat from Moscow.

Meanwhile, Nick Foulkes's Dancing into Battle (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £18.99) is a rollicking parade of British aristocratic celebrations in Brussels before the storm of Waterloo.

This is an unmissable narrative of eve-of-war balls and banquets that contrasts supremely with one of the bloodiest battles on earth.