Napoleon

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.

“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

Born in 1928, 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.

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.

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