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    Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799
    Unavailable
    Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799
    Unavailable
    Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799
    Ebook931 pages16 hours

    Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799

    By Philip Dwyer

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    The first volume of a groundbreaking and innovative popular biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of history's most complex and charismatic leaders

    'Remarkable ... a satisfying, psychologically convincing account of Napoleon's early years and ascent to power. Even-handed and authoritative, this fascinating and highly enjoyable book will be an eye opener even to those who think they know the subject well' Sunday Times

    'We are clearly in the presence of what will be a monumental work ... meticulously researched and well-written' Andrew Roberts, Literary Review

    Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power was neither inevitable nor smooth; it was full of mistakes, wrong turns and pitfalls.

    During his formative years his identity was constantly shifting, his character ambiguous and his intentions often ill-defined. He was, however, highly ambitious, and it was this ruthless drive that advanced his career.

    This book examines the extraordinary evolution of Napoleon's character and the means by which at the age of thirty he became head of the most powerful country in Europe and skilfully fashioned the image of himself that laid the foundation of the legend that endures to this day.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateMar 6, 2014
    ISBN9781408854693
    Unavailable
    Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799
    Author

    Philip Dwyer

    Philip Dwyer studied in Perth (Australia), Berlin and Paris, where he was a student of France's pre-eminent Napoleonic scholar, Jean Tulard. He has published widely on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, and is Director of the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

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    Reviews for Napoleon

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      The author states in his front matter that his intent is to write a biography emphasizing self-promotion as a major factor in Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power. That sounds very much like the words of a man who is not in thrall to the Napoleonic Legend, and indeed the author takes a dim view of Bonaparte's abilities and personality. Yet bias is not the essential problem with this Brontosaurus. The problem, at bottom, is that his vehicle to examine said self-promotion is to obsess over some rather uninteresting paintings, newspapers, and plays in tedious detail; moreover, the reproductions of the paintings are so small and dark that the reader cannot follow along with the points he is making--admittedly the publisher's fault, not his own. Add on his fascination with abstruse tangents such as Corsica's politics in the revolutionary age, and the book soon becomes tiresome. The book contains very little military detail, which makes it a sketchy biography indeed, and one might suggest that if the author did simply want to explicate Bonapartist self-promotion, he should have written a shorter, more focused book on that specific subject, and ridden his hobbyhorse down that path.
    • 4/5
      This book' first published in 2007, covers in interesting and vivid detail Napoleon's life up to the time of his seaizure of power in November 1799. It is the fourth Napoleon biography I have read--having read John Holland Rose's 2-volume biography in August 1957, Alan Schom's on 15 May 1998, and Frank McLynn's on 24 Nov 2002. The book shows well how Napoleon over-glorified his victories and de-emphasized or lied about his defeats. The book does not say much good about Napoleon and there is not a great deal of good to say about him during the years covered by this book. A further volume will cover the balance of Napoleon's life and maybe some good things will be shown in such volume. But I found this a hugely readable and exciting account, even though it does not show Napoleon in a good light. His seizure of power was a near run thing and blatantly illegal--he was much helped by the inepitude of his enemies.
    • 4/5
      Excellent combination of scholarship and readability. Military history is not overemphasized, and the battle scenes that are presented are generally well supported by maps. (The one exception is the Battle of the Nile; but considering that this was a naval battle of Nelson versus Brueys, the absence of a battle map is consistent with the somewhat cursory treatment that Dwyer legitimately gives to a battle in which Napoleon himself played virtually no part.)One complaint might be that Dwyer gives too summary a treatment to the French Revolution itself, but it's probably fair to expect a reader to have at least a general knowledge of this historical event and Dwyer does give a very good background of Paoli and Corsica, so important to Bonaparte's early life but not that well known among contemporary readers.I also like the numerous illustrations of artwork that pertain to the Napoleonic myth and Dwyer's excellent tie-in between these illustrations and his text.
    • 4/5
      Napoleon is one of the most of famous general. he is genius and he defended his country by invaders. So he acceded to an empepor. But he loose war so he was banished from France. But his patriotism is greart.
    • 5/5
      Napoleon Bonaparte is one of those leaders, like Churchill and Lincoln, about whom so much ink has already been spilled that it's hard to believe any writer has much usefully to add about him. Philip Dwyer is the rare historian who does, as he demonstrates in this very good biography.As he swept across Europe like a tide, washing away remnants of the medieval order, Bonaparte became a prototype for many of the worst types of the twentieth century: master of political propaganda, military dictator, and centralizing-unifying-standardizing Leader of "the people" and fulfillment of the Revolution. As such, he's been a hero to megalomaniacs everywhere. But Dwyer cuts through all that to show us the vain, brutal, and intensely driven young man at the heart of it all. I found it interesting and useful that for much of the book, Dwyer refers to his subject as "Buonaparte," the Corsican-Italian name he was born with, only adopting the French spelling as he began to rise in prominence and visibility. It's a strong reminder of the importance of Bonaparte's position, during so much of his early life, on the geographic and social margins of French society.French Revolutionary and Napoleonic history has never really been my thing, preferring as I do other parts of Europe and other eras in time. But not only did I very much enjoy this book on its own merits and learn a great deal from it, but I'm also most pleased to see this is intended to be the first volume in a biographical series. I'm sure the subsequent volume(s) will continue the strong pace set by this first book.