Binding: Hardcover
Description: This book provides a concise lively up - to - date portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career including his most important battles while situating him firmly in historical context. David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility - for both good and ill - that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell underlines the importance of the French Revolution of 1789 in understanding Napoleon's career. It was the Revolution that made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon developed as well as his unprecedented success in mobilizing human and material resources. The Revolution gave birth to the radically new intense form of warfare that Napoleon later practiced. Without the political changes brought about by the Revolution Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars he could not have seized and held onto power. He did betray much of the Revolution's heritage of liberty and equality and ruled as a virtual dictator. But his life and career were nonetheless revolutionary.
Title: Napoleon: A Concise Biography
Author(s): Bell David (Sidney And Ruth Lapidus Professor In The Era Of North Atlantic Revolutions Department Of History Sidney And Ruth Lapidus Professor In The Era Of North Atlantic Revolutions Department Of History Princeton University)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Barcode: 9780190262716
Pages: 152 Pages, 10 Illustrations
Publication Date: 12/3/2015
Category: Napoleonic Wars