Alexander Mikaberidze is the Hubert D. Humphreys Professor of History at Louisiana State University, Shreveport. He has written and edited more than a dozen books on diplomatic and military history, including The Russian Officer Corps in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815 (2005), Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World (2011) and Napoleon's Trial by Fire: The Burning of Moscow, 1812 (2014).