Description
The definitive biography of the good soldier-statesman by way of the acclaimed writer of The Typhoon of War—winner of the LA Instances Ebook prize, finalist for the Plutarch prize, winner of the Fondation Napoleon prize and a New York Times bestseller
“An exhilarating tale of army and political genius… Roberts is an uncommonly talented author.”
– The Washington Post
Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are some of the biggest in historical past, however Napoleon Bonaparte was once excess of an army genius and astute chief of fellows. Like George Washington and his personal hero Julius Caesar, he was once one of the crucial biggest soldier-statesmen of all Instances.
Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the primary one-quantity biography to benefit from the contemporary e-newsletter of Napoleon’s thirty-3 thousand letters, which appreciably grow to be our working out of his persona and motivation. Finally we see him as he was once: protean multitasker, decisive, unusually prepared to forgive his enemies and his errant spouse Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic significance of telling his personal tale, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, was the one bestselling Ebook of the 19th century.
An award-profitable historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-3 of Napoleon’s sixty combat web sites, found out a very powerful new files in data, or even made the lengthy travel by way of boat to St. Helena. He’s as acute in his working out of politics as He’s of army historical past. Right here Finally is a biography worth of its matter: magisterial, insightful, superbly written, by way of one in all our most efficient historians.
An Amazon Very best Ebook of the Month, November 2014: There were many books approximately Napoleon, however Andrew Roberts’ unmarried-quantity biography is the primary to make complete use of the continuing French e-newsletter of Napoleon’s 33,000 letters. Apparently leaving no stone unturned, Roberts starts in Corsica in 1769, pointing to Napoleon’s roots on that island—and a ensuing fascination with the Roman Empire—as an early indicator of what historical past would possibly cling for the boy. Napoleon’s upbringing—from his roots, to his penchant for holing up and studying approximately vintage wars, to his training in France, all looked as if it would element in a single path—and by the point he was once 24, he was once a French normal. Although he could be lifeless by way of 51, it was once most effective the start of what he may accomplish. Even supposing Napoleon: A Life is 800 pages lengthy, it’s each stress-free and illuminating. Napoleon comes throughout as whip good, neatly-studied, formidable to a fault, slightly awkward, and most likely such a lot importantly, a person who may flip at the appeal while he had to. Via his portrait, Roberts appears to be arguing issues: that Napoleon was once excess of only a complicated, and that his contributions to the sector very much exceeded the ones of the evil dictators that a few evaluate him to. “The historian, just like the orator,” Roberts rates Napoleon as pronouncing, “should persuade. He should persuade.” I, for one, am definite. An enchanting learn. –Chris Schluep
