Napoleon

Description

Written with great wit and panache, this biography also has a serious purpose: to make us face up to the moral bankruptcy of Napoleon's dictatorship. Johnson tells the whole story: his astonishing gift for figures and calculation, his mastery of cannon; his audacious, hyperactive and aggressive generalship and his simple battle tactics; his complete control of propaganda and the success of the cultural presentation of the Empire; the Code Napoleon; his failure as an international statesman, as Europe grew to hate him; his marshals and ministers; his wives, mistresses, personal style and working methods; the British blockade and the Continental System; the mistakes in Spain and Russia. The escape from Elba, the events leading up to Waterloo and the battle itself, which gets a full treatment, is particularly riveting.

Paul Johnson has written over 30 books and is one of Britain's leading historians. His book MODERN TIMES has been translated into 15 languages. A former editor of the NEW STATESMAN, he is a frequent contributor to newspapers throughout the world.

It is lucidly written, and enlivened by personal details and well-chosen quotations -- William Doyle * TLS * Written with his customary verve and certainty -- Andrew Roberts * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * Thoughtful and incisive * INDEPENDENT *