Customer Reviews

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Many people have read about Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and of the many scientists and engineers who accompanied him. However, many history books usually allot but a few pages perhaps to this important event, which led, among other things, to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The author of this book has done an excellent job of focusing entirely on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign with particular emphasis on the many "savants" who were charged with studying and documenting this ancient land. The many hardships that they endured are vividly described, as are their relationships with the French military and the local inhabitants. The author's writing style is accessible, friendly, authoritative and most engaging, making this a work that is difficult to put down. This account indeed forms an excellent link between the decaying ruins of an ancient civilization and the birth of modern Egyptology. This is a book that can be enjoyed by everyone, but history buffs, particularly those with a fascination for Egypt, will likely relish it the most.

This is a terrific book. I highly recommend it to almost anyone. All you need is an interest in history or science or adventure or foreign affairs or botany or ancient Egypt. On many levels, this book is fun and informative. And it's all true. For flavor, it's like Indiana Jones meets Albert Einstein meets James Audubon. It's hard to put down.

The story concerns Napoleon's foray into Egypt in 1799. Ostensibly it was to expand scientific knowledge of this ancient and mysterious land. In reality, it was the start of the anticipated conquest and annexation of Egypt. As the British did with India (i.e., creating a far-east outpost), the French were hoping to do with Egypt. But things did not go exactly as planned.

In other books on the subject, the focus is on the military aspect of the expedition. About 50,000 soldiers and sailors accompanied Napoleon. In Mirage, the author (Nina Burleigh) focuses on the 151 scientists (or savants) who also accompanied him. Here, the savants are the "heroes." We learn of their trials, tribulations, and successes.

Each chapter concerns a different savant and their respective expertise: botany, math, medicine, engineering, art, etc. Through the eyes of learned gents, we learn about Egypt, the parochial views of 19th century Europe, and the folly of imperialism. It's a terrific perspective that is told in an easily accessible style.

Burleigh keeps up the suspense. She covers many academic fields but does not overwhelm a reader. It's a fun read and you can't help but learn. For example, she describes the savants' discoveries while stuck in desert sands. She puts discoveries in the context of the time and shows how some still apply, like Fourier's math work.

The only knock on the book, and it is minor, is that it lacks a map of the region. Readers should print one before starting the book.

Nina Burleigh paints a vivid picture of the curious minds of the scientists who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, a land beyond their imagination.

The scientists' desire to understand what they were seeing and to map, catalogue, paint--and in some ways, dominate--this exotic place feels real. Though the cast of characters is large, and occasionally unwieldy, the book draws fine portraits of individuals, many of whom are worthy of their own biographies. And Mirage projects a sense of excitement about learning that is contagious.

Nina Burleigh's book, Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt, is a great discovery on the earliest era of western ambition in the middle east. The history is told in the style of a vivid, 'you are there' narrative that is very accessible. The inspiration of the book is in chronicling this marriage of science and empire in the throes of a disasterous military campaign, where the best, brightest and youngest from the academies jump at the chance to join Napoleon's army to destinations unknown. Even when their own army was in complete disarray, these first archaeologists, botanists, engineers and inventors kept drawing and collecting, and Burleigh does an excellent job at making that incredible history live again. These individuals who produced the encyclopedias, the animal studies, the engineering plans and the first accurate images of Egypt, with its pyramids and sphinx and the Nile, are the center of Burliegh's book. Many are by now familiar with how the current disaster echoes those chronicled by T.E. Lawrence or the Russian campaign in Afganastan, but who knew of Napoleon's own will to march into the desert against all logic, and of how the legacy created there was not military or geo-politcal but scientific?

Ms. Burleigh's Mirage is an excellent account of the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon's army, and the French intellectual Savants that accompanied the military on this ill-conceived and failed military expedition. The accounts of the physical trials, successes, and failures of the Savants is profoundly interesting.

Ms. Burleigh's depth of research on the subject was very good. She provides many detailed accounts and examples, taken from first hand journals, that provide the reader with first-hand accounts of a very trying period in French and Egyptian history.

For those interested in this period of colonial French history; interested in the Egyptian art, architecture and culture; and the practical application of 18th century science to the infancy of archaeology, this is a must read for you.

Though I normally don't read nonfiction, Mirage immediately drew me in with its vivid descriptions of this strange, historic expedition. Aptly titled, the book chronicles Napoleon's disastrous foray into Egypt in pursuit of some exotic, orientalist fantasy that never existed in reality. Aping Alexander, Napoleon took with him some of the best and most adventurous French intellectuals of the time. These scientists and academics, or "savants," become the core of the narrative -- distinct and eccentric characters that I followed with interest. Some of the situations the savants found themselves in were truly surreal -- but despite the hardships and suffering they endured during the journey, they were able to expand their fields of study -- and even discover the Rosetta Stone!

I knew very little about this expedition -- or this period in history -- but the book is enormously informative, with loads of facts as well as being entertaining, and in spite of myself I learned a lot! As I read I kept thinking of our current fiasco in Iraq, which seems to repeat in so many ways the arrogance and ignorance of Napoleon and his French soldiers. So the book is amazingly timely as well.

A great read and a well-written, fascinating book! I recommend it highly.

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt
Mirage

"The scholars' work was thrilling and tedious. They tripped on fresh corpses and slipped in centuries of bat guano, in rooms so dark they couldn't see their own hands. Working by torchlight was dangerous by itself, since the long-enclosed areas were highly flammable, packed with wood, ancient paint, and mummy tar. They most feared not ancient spirits but stumbling into unseen holes, and the ever-present, fluttering Chauve-souiris
(the French word for bat is literally "bald-mouse) which swooped around their heads by the hundreds." -- Mirage p. 182

A dedicated band of French naturalists, mathematicians, chemists and engineers battled intense desert heat, murderous tribesmen, and disease and privation to accomplish the first scientific expedition of Egypt at the end of the 18th century. Among other things, the ship carrying most of the expedition's equipment was sunk and one of the artist's experienced partial blindness from wind-blown sand.
The trek was led by Napoleon, whose interests were more political than academic (he saw the invasion of Egypt as a sort of end-around the British, who controlled the valuable Indian subcontinent) The mission was jeopardized by infighting and Napoleon's own unpredictability and ego, and was further complicated by a wild-goose chase of French forces after an elusive tribal leader. Nina Burleigh has done a fine job telling the story of Napoleon's mission in "Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt." Using primary sources in both French and English and generous illustrations she tells a fascinating story.

One of the major discoveries of the expedition - The Rosetta Stone--ended up in the British Museum instead of The Louvre after the commander of the French forces capitulated to the British. But the bulk of the work of translating and interpreting the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone was done by a Frenchman. In a bizarre gesture, Napoleon offered to convert to Islam -- but was deterred when he was told he would have to refrain from alcohol and be circumcised. He acknowledged his overture was "quackery," but defended it on the grounds of expediency.

This is the story of a great adventure and the beginning of Egyptology. Full of insights and anecdotes about the savants--the artists, engineers, mathematicians, botanists and others that accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte when he invaded Egypt in 1798. They recorded everything ancient and modern that they saw.

I listened to this on CD. It is a good story, if a little hard to follow. Others have done better jobs advancing multiple stories and time lines in an understandable way. I learned about characters that I'd never heard of. Napoleon's Egyptian disaster is usually only referenced with regard to his rise to Emperor so it was very interesting to learn the details of his poor planning and callousness toward the human lives he disrupted and lost.

My only beef with the author is her use of untranslated French quotations. This is very common and I find it unhelpful. If the words are important, then render them in English also. If they aren't important enough to appear in English then just leave them out. (About 4% of Americans can speak French so I guess the author didn't want 96% of her readers to know what the heck she was saying.)

When Napoleon led 50,000 soldiers into the nominally Turkish-controlled Egypt, he brought along 151 scientists, from leading mature famous ones to students. The book details all of the things that went wrong, and quite destroyed Napoleon's image as a great military leader to me. There's too much of the military events and not enough of the actual science for me, but it does make a wonderful read. The cultural confusions and many disasters amaze. Many of the scientists died there, or had their health destroyed; all were changed by the experience. How Napoleon managed to spin this debacle to avoid having it ruin his career mystifies me. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys the history of science, Egypt, or Napoleon, as it's a remarkably easy read for a history book.