Napoleon the Great

Andrew Roberts

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English

Penguin
27 May 2015

Biography: historical, political & military; History; European history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Napoleonic Wars

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'etat 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, modernized 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.

By: Andrew Roberts
Imprint: Penguin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 42mm
Weight: 709g
ISBN: 9780141032016
ISBN 10: 0141032014
Pages: 976
Publication Date: 27 May 2015
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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.

Reviews for Napoleon the Great

Simply dynamite ... Roberts's fine book encompasses all the evidence to give a brilliant portrait of the man -- Bernard Cornwell * Mail on Sunday * Masterly ... a huge, rich, deep, witty, humane and unapologetically admiring biography ... gloriously enjoyable -- Dan Jones * Daily Telegraph *