Napoleon: A Political Life

A political biography of Napoleon Bonaparte charts his rise and fall, detailing his devotion to the French Revolution and his seminal influence on the face of nineteenth-century European history.

About the Author :
Steven Englund received his graduate degree from Cambridge and his doctorate in French history from Princeton. In the 1970s, he wrote for the Paris Bureau of Time magazine, where his knowledge and love of France originated. He has taught courses on French history and on Napoleon at UCLA, the University of Paris and Paris's prestigious School of Advanced Studies in Social Science. He lives in Paris.

Review :
Arno J. Mayer Princeton University, author of "The Furies: Violence and Terror in the Russian and French Revolutions" This life of Napoleon is constructed magnificently and written with elegance and zest. Englund treats Napoleon as a political general of the epoch of the French Revolution that so profoundly marked both his consciousness and his project. The author has a magisterial command of the most important scholarship on the General on Horseback, but he has the great merit of carrying his erudition lightly. Jack Miles MacArthur Fellow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "God: A Biography" Two centuries later, Napoleon Bonaparte can still fill us with awe -- at least when we meet him in the company of Steven Englund. An arresting reintroduction to a man about whom, after all, the last word has not been said. Jacques-Olivier Boudon University of Paris-IV (Sorbonne), President of the Institut Napoleon Englund invites us to take the deepest possible look at Napoleon. He tracks the mystery -- one might say, the genius -- of a man who was adulated and hated by an entire generation of romantics. Yet Englund refuses the romantic vision; he sticks to the facts, which he recounts with a diabolic precision, portraying in incisive strokes the best portraits drawn of the Emperor's colleagues. Far more than just another synthesis, this superb book gives us the following message: If Napoleon was certainly the heir of the Revolution, he is even more the incarnation of the French nation. John Merriman Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University, author of "A History of Modern Europe" Napoleon, whose amazing life, incessant wars, and centralized empire helped shape modern France and influenced modern Europe, continues to fascinate. Steven Englund's new biography of Napoleon is the finest now available, unfailingly informed, elegantly crafted, and invariably compelling. Louis Bergeron School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris), author of "France Under Napoleon" With his acute look from across the Atlantic, and his panoramic knowledge of the literature on the subject, Englund must be read. There is no doubt some predestination present in his writing a book that will definitely remain an epoch-making one. Philip G. Dwyer University of Newcastle, editor of "Napoleon and Europe" Steven Englund's is the best biography of Napoleon to have been written in English in many, many years. Pierre Sorlin University of Paris-VIII (Saint-Denis) Let me put this bluntly: I have never before read a book that simultaneously impressed me for its scholarly brilliance yet read like a novel. Englund's examination of Napoleon's apolitical politics of "la Nation" is must reading for historians, yet his opening description of the Emperor's tomb at Les Invalides is worthy of Balzac. Jacques-Olivier BoudonUniversity of Paris-IV (Sorbonne), President of the Institut Napoleon Englund invites us to take the deepest possible look at Napoleon. He tracks the mystery -- one might say, the genius -- of a man who was adulated and hated by an entire generation of romantics. Yet Englund refuses the romantic vision; he sticks to the facts, which he recounts with a diabolic precision, portraying in incisive strokes the best portraits drawn of the Emperor's colleagues. Far more than just another synthesis, this superb book gives us the following message: If Napoleon was certainly the heir of the Revolution, he is even more the incarnation of the French nation.