Alan Strauss-Schom is a distinguished historian and biographer whose work has illuminated the political and military currents of Europe’s past. His major titles include Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, 1803–1805; One Hundred Days: Napoleon’s Road to Waterloo; and Napoleon Bonaparte: A Biography, a finalist for the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize. His more recent book, The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoleon III, reaffirmed his reputation for meticulous archival research and narrative clarity. Nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Strauss-Schom has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has spent decades tracing the often-hidden threads of history with rigor and grace. He is the founder and first president of the French Colonial Historical Society and established its scholarly journal, French Colonial Studies, expanding the field and fostering a community of inquiry that endures today. In The Swallows of Montafia, he turns that same attentive and discerning gaze toward the story of his own life.