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What can I say ´¡²Ô»å°ùé, he's a great man :)

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "What can I say ´¡²Ô»å°ùé, he's a great man :)"

I guess a lot of people couldn't (and still can't) see what he tried to achieve and why the European Kings and Fiefdoms got so scared.

Very true ´¡²Ô»å°ùé!

Here is a new book on Napoleon that may interest a few here:


by Alan Forrest
Description:
On a cold December day in 1840 Parisians turned out in force to watch as the body of Napoleon was solemnly carried on a riverboat from Courbevoie on its final journey to the Invalides. The return of their long-dead Emperor's corpse from the Island of St Helena was a moment that Paris had eagerly awaited, though many feared that the memories stirred would serve to further destabilize a country that had struggled for order and direction since he had been sent into exile.

In this book, Alan Forrest, tells the remarkable story of how the son of a Corsican attorney became the most powerful man in Europe, a man whose charisma and legacy endured after his lonely death many thousands of miles from the country whose fate had become so entwined with his own.

Along the way, Alan Forrest also cuts away the many layers of myth and counter myth that have grown up around Napoleon, a man who mixed history and legend promiscuously and, drawing on original research and his own distinguished background in French history, demonstrates that Napoleon was as much a product of his times as their creator.

The Author:
Alan Forrest is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. He works on modern French history, especially the period of the French Revolution and Empire, and on the history of modern warfare. He serves on the editorial boards of French History and War in History, and is a member of the advisory committee for Annales historiques de la Revolution Française.

Here is one review of the latest release title offering a new and concise biography on Napoleon as mentioned above:



by Alan Forrest
Review:
"WHAT do you do if you want a biography of an epoch-maker such as Napoleon in a text of not much more than 300 pages?

You ring Professor Forrest of York University who is so familiar with the subject and all its sources that he is able to cover every essential without seeming hurried, cluttered or trite.

Forrest beguiles us at the outset with the transfer of Napoleon's ashes from Saint Helena to Paris in 1840 and their interment in the chapel of Les Invalides.

Then we return to the beginning, the birth in Corsica 1769, son of a lawyer, and follow the legendary outlines of his rise and fall refreshed at every stage by Forrest's gift for synthesis and overview without loss of vital detail.

Napoleon was always a product of the French Revolution but he was first a military man.

He passed out of military school at 16, well before the revolution, having specialised in artillery because officers in the infantry or cavalry were drawn from the French nobility.

He soon demonstrated his skill by dislodging the English from Toulon. By the age of 26 he'd been given command by the Revolutionary authorities of the invasion of north Italy which he took from the Austrians.

He fell in love with Josephine, a Creole woman six years his senior and they were married.

Now he was unstoppable. In Republican France the government of the Directory gave way to that of the Consuls. He was First Consul and started to assume dictatorial powers. Briefly there was peace in Europe. For me this is his greatest period during which he drew up the Civil Code.

It replaced creaky traditions in France and the seized territories with a relatively sane and simple system of justice. It remains one of the pillars of European law.

But Napoleon suffered from depression if he wasn't out there conquering and reshaping things and his megalomania kicked in with a vengeance.

So he became consul for life then hereditary emperor of the French. It was the Pope's job to crown emperors but Napoleon crowned himself.

He made his brothers kings in their own right. He ditched Josephine and married the daughter of the emperor of Austria by whom he had a son.

He compared himself to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Charlemagne but he was more theatrical than all of them put together.

Everything had to be plumed, draped, monogrammed or redesigned - even the furniture - and he stole a lot of art too.

He was a master propagandist who invented the cult of personality for tyrannical purposes. Every dictator since has studied this original.

However it was all too much.The march on Moscow in 1812 was absurd and tragic allowing Wellington to take Spain from the French.

Napoleon's grand adventure collapses, he is forced to abdicate, is exiled to Elba, escapes and returns to Paris.

The man's vital force is astonishing. Another coalition is formed against him and the final confrontation is at Waterloo in 1815.

Napoleon is defeated by the English, Dutch and Prussian forces but as Wellington admitted it was a near thing.

Exiled again, this time to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, Napoleon dies there in 1821 at the age of 52.

Throughout all of this Professor Forrest keeps his academic cool, never once joining the debate on whether or not Napoleon was a good or bad thing and the result is a book of supreme competence and reflection." - Daily Express

I just picked this up at the library and intend to start reading it this week. The book is a biography of the Napoleonic dynasty with, it appears, the majority dedicated to Napoleon I. I perused it quickly and it appeared to be something I will like, although it is only 255 pages long. The author must cram a lot of information into a rather short book.

by William H.C. Smith

Hi Jill,

Let us know if you do read it and your thoughts. I have a copy of this book (same cover) that I am yet to read that may cover the same ground although first published in 1909.

by A.H. Atteridge

Will do, AR.

Thanks Jill for the entry. Interesting.

An upcoming biography:
Release date: November 4, 2014

Napoleon: A Life

by Andrew Roberts (no photo)

Synopsis:

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first modern biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.

Thank you Jerome

Napoleon and the Revolution

by David P. Jordan (no photo)

Synopsis:

This new study of Napoleon emphasizes his ties to the French Revolution, his embodiment of its militancy, and his rescue of its legacies. Jordan's work illuminates all aspects of his fabulous career, his views of the Revolution and history, the artists who created and embellished his image, and much of his talk about himself and his achievements.

Napoleon: A Biography

by Frank McLynn (no photo)

Synopsis:

Author McLynn explores the Promethean legend from his Corsican roots, through the chaotic years of the French Revolution and his extraordinary military triumphs, to the coronation in 1804, to his fatal decision in 1812 to add Russia to his seemingly endless conquests, and his ultimate defeat, imprisonment, and death in Saint Helena. McLynn aptly reveals the extent to which Napoleon was both existential hero and plaything of fate, mathematician and mystic, intellectual giant and moral pygmy, great man and deeply flawed human being.

As Napoleon’s obsession with his family surfaces and his conviction that every man has his price, the emperor emerges as a figure closer to a modern Mafia godfather than a visionary European. In this work, McLynn brings the reader, as never before, closer to understanding the much mythologized Napoleon.

Napoleon's defeat in Egypt did not discourage his dreams of power which he seized after the campaign....turning a defeat into victory.

Bonaparte in Egypt

by J. Christopher Herold (no photo)

Synopsis:

Originally published in 1962, J. Christopher Herold's Bonaparte in Egypt is the best modern account of this extraordinary campaign. In a detailed study, elegantly written, Herold covers all aspects of Bonaparte's expedition: military, political, and cultural. It was a bold adventure, full of drama, topped and tailed by the extremes of total triumph and utter defeat. Although Bonaparte was victorious at the Battle of the Pyramids and occupied Cairo, his fleet was completely destroyed by Nelson at Abukir Bay and his ambition to conquer the Holy Land was frustrated at Acre. Despite these reverses. Bonaparte returned to France where he was greeted as a hero and seized political power in 1799. His attempt to take permanent control of Egypt and Syria for France was a critical stage on his road to power, and it is one of the most revealing episodes in his spectacular career.

A look at the personal life of Napoleon and his Empress, Josephine.

Napoleon and Josephine: An Improbably Marriage

by Evangeline Bruce(no photo)

Synopsis:

Set against the pomp and splendor of prerevolutionary France, Napoleon and Josephine is an enthralling tale of desire, betrayal, and ambition. It chronicles Napoleon's rise to power and ascent to the imperial throne; the first meeting between Napoleon and Josephine; and the subsequent stormy marriage and Josephine's inability to produce an heir, their divorce...and wrenching separation.Drawn from the lovers' private letters and journals, this biography brings to life a tumultuous era and two of history's most fascinating people in a story so compelling, romantic, and compulsively readable it could be fiction.

Napoleon: On War

by Bruno Colson (no photo)

Synopsis:

This is the book on war that Napoleon never had the time or the will to complete.

In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time.

In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of Napoleon's 'military maxims', with varying degrees of success. But not until now has there been a systematic attempt to put Napoleon's thinking on war and strategy into a single authoritative volume, reflecting both the full spectrum of his thinking on these matters as well as the almost unparalleled range of his military experience, from heavy cavalry charges in the plains of Russia or Saxony to counter-insurgency operations in Egypt or Spain.

To gather the material for this book, military historian Bruno Colson spent years researching Napoleon's correspondence and other writings, including a painstaking examination of perhaps the single most interesting source for his thinking about war: the copy-book of General Bertrand, the Emperor's most trusted companion on Saint-Helena, in which he unearthed a Napoleonic definition of strategy which is published here for the first time.

The huge amount of material brought together for this ground-breaking volume has been carefully organized to follow the framework of Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War, allowing a fascinating comparison between Napoleon's ideas and those of his great Prussian interpreter and adversary, and highlighting the intriguing similarities between these two founders of modern strategic thinking.

Napoleon probably should have stayed in exile since his return was a bit of a bust!

Napoleon on Elba: The Diary of an Eyewitness to Exile

by Robert Christophe (no photo)

Synopsis:

In April 1814 Napoleon Bonaparte, onetime emperor of France and master of Europe, was exiled to the island of Elba. Colonel Neil Campbell was instructed to accompany the fallen monarch. Part guardian, part spy, Campbell monitored Napoleon and kept an observant watch on the comings and goings of his confidents and much reduced household staff. He eavesdropped on the island's gossip, conversed almost daily with Napoleon, attempted to gain his trust and sought to gauge his intentions. For a year, Campbell kept an intimate diary of events on the tiny island. It paints character studies of all the key personalities and wades into island gossip with relish. It records events as Napoleon builds an empire in miniature on Elba and it keeps an eye on the coming and going of agents and would-be assassins. Frank and enlightening it also reveals much about the personality of Napoleon and of the tensions and subterfuge within the exiled community as Napoleon devises and implements his plans for an escape. The vivid diary is now published in a new accessible edition and it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in this era when the fate of empires hung in the balance.

Nelson and Napoléon

by Margarette Lincoln (no photo)

Synopsis:

With an introduction by N.A.M Rodger and accompanying essays by leading international experts. Nelson & Napoleon explores the political, social and cultural contexts for one of the most significant naval battles in history, the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Through close examination of the careers of key characters it provides a detailed yet accessible insight into the complexities of early nineteenth-century conflict and paints a vivid picture of the events and personalities involved. This lavishly illustrated book celebrates the bicentenary of the battle, and describes in detail these objects, some of which have been photographed for the first time

Would love to have this book.

An upcoming biography:
Release date: October 9, 2018

Napoleon: A Life

by Adam Zamoyski

Synopsis:

"What a novel my life has been!" Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by twenty-six, an army general. Seduced by an older woman, his marriage transformed him into a galvanizing military commander. The Pope crowned him as Emperor of the French when he was only thirty-five. Within a few years, he became the effective master of Europe, his power unparalleled in modern history. His downfall was no less dramatic.

The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment, and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.

Thank you Jerome