PENGUIN Napoleon the Great

I read my first biography of Napoleon (Felix Markham's) back in 1965, and have read dozens more books on him since. This is the best I've read. It is distinguished by drawing on a study of Napoleon's 33,000 letters (published by the Fondation Napoléon in 2004, a third of which have never been published before) and an impressive array of primary and secondary sources. Alongside this, Roberts has visited all but 7 of Napoleon's 60 battlefields in the company of military experts, and key locations throughout Napoleon's life including Elba, the Route Napoléon and St Helena. It is an enthralling and insightful read, his command of the correspondence enabling him to illustrate the great man's protean mind as he juggled the immediacies of campaigns and battles with the minutiae of matters across an extraordinary range of subjects back home. The character studies of those around him are vivid.In his conclusion (the penultimate chapter, the final one "Envoi" being a sentence or two on what happened to all the other leading characters in the story after Napoleon's death) Roberts sums up his life and career, and sets out to justify his choice of title, which he does convincingly. Roberts makes a powerful case for Napoleon's powers as a civil administrator who shaped much of what is great about France today. He could perhaps have made more of Napoleon's wish not to bring destruction on French soil by fighting on in 1814 and 15 as compared with his cavalier attitude to causing carnage abroad, but there we are - a life like Napoleon's is likely to be rich in contradictions.The book is generously illustrated with 86 illustrations crammed into 24 colour plates. There are 29 maps, perhaps the least satisfactory aspect of the book as they don't always relate to the text in the most helpful way (places and features mentioned which don't appear on the map) and I've seen better battlefield maps, which don't do justice to Roberts's vivid descriptions. But these are always a challenge as the dispositions on the battlefield can change radically during the battle. A sloppy proof reading error (in the Penguin edition, presumably copied from the original hardback) on the map showing the movement of the Grande Armée from the Channel coast to the Rhine August-October 1805, prior to Austerlitz, says "1803" in the heading, which may confuse some people. One myth dispelled - it has always been said that when Napoleon gave the order to his gunners to fire on the ice across which the Russians were fleeing at Austerlitz that thousands of Russians were drowned, but Roberts tells us that recent excavations of reclaimed land at the lake have come up with only a dozen corpses and a couple of guns.

This remarkable work tells us about the Napoleon's character as well as the legend (which it corrects). Napoleon was a truly extraordinary and many faceted character and a great man who has left a lasting impact on History. This biography is a truly remarkable work by Andrew Roberts. The scale of his research is amazing, as is the way Napoleon's military and political worlds are associated so closely with his personal life. The scale of the Allied opposition and continual challenges that Napoleon faced are highlighted. In my opinion this work takes Biography to a new level . We owe so much to Andrew's insight based upon his extraordinary diligence. David

Having read Julian Jackson's biography of de Gaulle earlier this year, with its cross-references to Napoleon's life, I felt the need to expand my virtually non-existent knowledge of the emperor. Perhaps we are inclined in the UK to see him through the prism of Trafalgar and Waterloo, but in many ways Britain is peripheral to the military campaigns that seemed to be a constant feature of Napoleon's rule (although Pitt and his successors funded much of the continental military opposition to France during this period). Roberts is determined to argue against the view, apparently prevalent in much of the British writing about Napoleon since WW2, that Napoleon was a sort of precursor of Hitler. I am not sure that this necessitates making the case for him being entitled to the moniker "the Great", but he was clearly a very different sort of ruler to Hitler and had many non-military positive achievements to his credit. Nevertheless, it might be a good idea for me now to read a more sceptical appraisal of the man.The comparison with Hitler brings to mind Napoleon's catastrophic Russian campaign. I am not sure that I am very clear from Roberts' book why Moscow was the target of his campaign, rather than St Petersburg, which was the capital and, I should have thought, rather more accessible. The only explanation seems to be that he was drawn into the heart of Russia by the Russian army, but I may of course missed the point somewhere along the line! It is certainly the case, as Roberts points out, that Napoleon had learnt elsewhere that conquering a capital did not necessarily mean that you had control of its territory.There are lots of maps and these will be useful to readers who have a better understanding of battlefield manoeures than I do. I would have found it helpful if everywhere mentioned in the text had been featured on the maps. But this is a quibble. The book is well-written and very engaging - and almost makes one believe that its subject was as well!

The depth of research in the book is extraordinary, must have taken years to complete, and leads one [ me ] to ask what actually is history, since most of what we believe about Napoleon is Whig propaganda that lasts to this day. We joined all six of the seven coalitions against Napoleon who frequently made offers of peace which were ignored.The battles, the politics and his personal life are all examined in depth and even handedly, right up to his ignominious end on St Helena, no he wasn't poisoned, many people had traces of arsenic in their hair, it was stomach cancer. Yes he made some key errors, invading Spain and installing his brother on the throne was hardly a diplomatic triumph and getting far too friendly with the Tsar led to the invasion and his downfall, but it's clear he did a lot of good, it's taken me a long time to finish the book, 820 pages excluding notes but well worth it.

I devoured and loved this. There is a what felt like slightly rushed chapter on the Iberian campaign, and the beginning and end of the book isn't quite as strong as the truly glorious middle, but overall this is a fantastic read. It is very much a biography of Napoleon (obviously), with huge events like Waterloo and Trafalgar not taking up huge sections of the book, instead focusing on the details of what Bony was up to. Read this to get to know Napoleon, then read other books for the minutiae of the Napoleonic wars if you so desire.