Napoleon the Great - Hardcover

Roberts, Andrew

4.22

22,640 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846140277 ISBN 13: 9781846140273

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2014

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

AWARDED THE PRIX DU JURY DES GRANDS PRIX DE LA FONDATION NAPOL�ON 2014

From Andrew Roberts, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Storm of War, this is the definitive modern biography of Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just twenty years, from October 1795 when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'�tat he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the Revolution had descended. In a series of dazzling battles he reinvented the art of warfare; in peace, he completely remade the laws of France, modernised her systems of education and administration, and presided over a flourishing of the beautiful 'Empire style' in the arts. The impossibility of defeating his most persistent enemy, Great Britain, led him to make draining and ultimately fatal expeditions into Spain and Russia, where half a million Frenchmen died and his Empire began to unravel.

More than any other modern biographer, Andrew Roberts conveys Napoleon's tremendous energy, both physical and intellectual, and the attractiveness of his personality, even to his enemies. He has walked 53 of Napoleon's 60 battlefields, and has absorbed the gigantic new French edition of Napoleon's letters, which allows a complete re-evaluation of this exceptional man. He overturns many received opinions, including the myth of a great romance with Josephine: she took a lover immediately after their marriage, and, as Roberts shows, he had three times as many mistresses as he acknowledged.

Of the climactic Battle of Leipzig in 1813, as the fighting closed around them, a French sergeant-major wrote, 'No-one who has not experienced it can have any idea of the enthusiasm that burst forth among the half-starved, exhausted soldiers when the Emperor was there in person. If all were demoralised and he appeared, his presence was like an electric shock. All shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" and everyone charged blindly into the fire.'

The reader of this biography will understand why this was so.

Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner, the Wolfson Prize for History); Masters and Commanders; and The Storm of War, which reached No. 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and Arts. He appears regularly on British television and radio and writes for the Sunday Telegraph, Spectator, Literary Review, Mail on Sunday and Daily Telegraph.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Truly a Napoleonic triumph of a book, elegantly written, epic in scale, novelistic in detail, irresistibly galloping with the momentum of a cavalry charge, as comfortable on the battlefield as in the bedroom. Here, at last, is the full biography (Simon Sebag Montefiore Evening Standard)

Magisterial and beautifully written ... Napoleon could have few biographers more dedicated to their subject ... a richly detailed and sure-footed reappraisal of the man, his achievements - and failures - and the extraordinary times in which he lived (Jeremy Jennings Standpoint)

Masterly ... a huge, rich, deep, witty, humane and unapologetically admiring biography ... Roberts's book is not just another brilliant narrative biography of Napoleon - although it certainly is this. It is also an essay on statesmanship and a meditation on history itself ... gloriously enjoyable (Dan Jones Daily Telegraph)

Simply dynamite ... [Napoleon was] a mass of contradictions, and Roberts's book encompasses all the evidence to give a brilliant portrait of the man. The book, as it needs to be, is massive, yet the pace is brisk and it's never overwhelmed by the scholarly research, which was plainly immense ... Roberts suggests looking at Europe for the Emperor's monument, but this magnificent biography is not a bad place to start (Bernard Cornwell Mail on Sunday)

This enthralling account of his [Napoleon's] rise and fall is packed with such details. Whether or not he was "great" will continue to be debated ... but there is no doubt that this is a great biography (Miriam Gross Evening Standard)

Marvellously readable and sumptuously illustrated ... gripping ... Roberts has been indefatigable in tracking down memorabilia and visiting the sites of battles, palaces and places of exile. This is all richly depicted and woven into a narrative that is told with the aplomb of an accomplished historical storyteller ... It is a book that sets out for a new generation exactly why he mattered and will continue to matter so long as people argue about faith, and property, and kings, and the future of Europe (Mark Mazower Guardian)

About the Author:

Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner, the Wolfson Prize for History); Masters and Commanders; and The Storm of War, which reached No. 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and Arts. He appears regularly on British television and radio and writes for the Sunday Telegraph, Spectator, Literary Review, Mail on Sunday and Daily Telegraph.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.