Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life (The Napoleonic Wars Book 2)

While this biography of Napoleon was at time somewhat redundant, it was exceptionally informative. I would highly recommend "Napoleon: A Life" to any reader wishing to understand the man, his brutal campaigns, and the political state of late 18th/early 19th century France.

Although some of the battle descriptions seemed quite lengthy, this book kept my interest to the very end. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Napoleonic era.

I opened Adam Schom's book with high hopes. A one volume biography of Napoleon that should at least give me the bones of his life and impact. But Schom is fundamentally a military historian and it shows in page after page. He does not focus on the important legal and administrative changes that Napoleon introduced throughout his reign. His rule meant that the Aristorocracy could never hope to return to France in the way they ruled before the revolution. Schom basically ignores the French Revolution and its aftermath. He tells little of the social and political whirlpool that led to Bonaparte taking power. His refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the Code Napoleon is staggering and leaves this volume with a great hole that no amount of love affairs and military campaigns can fill. The correct title should have been a military biography, but little else. A grave disappointment.

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This book has received some poor reviews on this forum, and I don't understand why. Perhaps some people love Bonaparte too much. I knew little about the subject going in to it, but I have to say this book has proved to be and education.Schom has taken a critical stance of Napolean, and that is fine. It is clear that sometimes he can be overly critical of Bonapartes brilliance on the field of battle and his organisational skills. Lets face it, you don't become the ruler of Europe by being a bungler.But what Schom does highlight is that Napolean was human, and that his flaws were there from the beginning to be exploited. That others failed to exploit his flaws is one of the reasons for his success.I say this book is worth the price, has provided me with both enjoyment and education, and if you want to know M.Bonaparte intimately you could do a lot worse than to read this one.

Great book

First, a great deal of the reviews on Amazon blast the writer on his roasting of Napoleon.I am going to state my personal opinion; I found this book to give a decent overall picture of Napoleon.I am neutral on my opinion of Napoleon; never have been able to determine if Napoleon was a hero or a tyrant.The book points out his good and bad points.The book does a good job of explaining his early childhood and his death; it generally satisfied my interest in Napoleon.

Whilst biased against Bonaparte (the author demotes all achievements to luck or contributions of others) this still has much to offer through its warped-but-entertaining catty-European-bitchy tone. Kinda like steeping down onto the pier for a few moments on a windy day - you wouldn't want to stay too long, but a nice breezy change from the honest fogs of other bios like Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton.June 24 addendum: Cath Zeta Jones buys this very book in Speilberg's immigrant propaganda movie "The Terminal".

Very readable extensive biography. found it totally engrossing . Get the impression that this writer is presenting the case for the Prosecution.Napoleon appears as a dictator who bled France dry of men and money. Encouraging systematic looting of conquered territories, ill-treating prisoners of war, causing huge amounts of suffering by making hardly any health care provisions for his own wounded. A pathological liar, a propagandist,who rigged plebiscites, curtailed free press and suppressed criticism generally. Re-introducing slavery, abandoning armies in Egypt and Russia in the process.A few million lives lost later, the borders of France were virtually the same in 1814 as in 1792.The work is extensively foot-noted and there is some economic analysis included .And the case for Napoleon being murdered in his final exile on St. Helena is intriguing.But the writer seems to find nothing endearing to say about the impact of Napoleon's rise and fall on Europe.Nothing about Code Napoleon, little about Napoleon's move to end discrimination against Jews in the Papal States, to create some autonomy for Poland, and to forge new larger states in what is now Germany and Italy. But also what seems missing is an analysis concerning why Napoleon stayed in power so long if this reign was such a disaster for France. This was an era where leaders could be easily deposed . After all the losses in human life , money and prestige by 1814, there were enough French people who were prepared to rally around him during the Hundred Days leading to Waterloo.But overall a superb biography as long as one remembers this is an indictment of Napoleon and his regime.

In need of a good editor - we didn't need to know which corps under which commander was engaged in each battle and a simplification of family relationships would have been helpful. But as an academic study of one of the most fascinating and paranoid characters in recent history this could not be beaten. Easy to see now why people were fearful of a dictator driven by war and plunder and brutality all on a grand scale. Good and generally lucky at war he abandoned his armies in defeat. He could charm the ladies, but lies, promises he never intended to keep while burnishing his image offers a chilling mirror-image to certain world leaders in power today.

What an interesting book. Yet another example of how circumstances in history throw up the wrong man at the wrong time. Extremely well researched and detailed. Really liked the writing style. Biographies can either be very good or as dull as dish water. This one kept me hooked. As for Napoleon, what an egotistical maniac. Sent a whole generation of young Frenchman to there death for his own ends. Probably one of the most prolific thieves in the world and the letters from his battlefield surgeon make appalling reading. Napoleon had no respect for anyone that as head of state he had the responsibility for. Was Napoleon a master tactician, probably very good by he was opposed by some incredible incompetence.

I downloaded this for my kindle, as i have with a lot of other books, while they all have the odd spelling mistake, this is by far the worst for not being proof read/converted from print. I'm still only 17% through it (failed siege of Acre) and i've lost count of the mistakes.The book itself is fine, although highlighting his many faults and mistakes more so than anything, but i think Amazon needs to do better when converting books for digital download.

Excellent book, one of the best I have read, and I read a lot. Quite a detailed biography but not over the top. Reads like a thriller. What an appalling man, a salutary lesson to us all on the corruption that absolute power can deliver.