Customer Reviews

Napoleon and Hitler: A Comparative Biography

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The great and prolific people of the world are always defined by the times in which they live, a fact which we cannot escape. To understand Hitler one must understand what came before, especially the legacy that Napoleon left upon the European continent. While a straight comparison/contrast of the two leaders is a core theme in this analysis, Desmond Seward transcends that, attacking the interrelational cause-and-effect relationship between the two conquerors. The enormous complexity of these two personalities, of which numerous, exhaustive studies have been made, preclude Seward from exploring each too deeply in one text. His exploration, as with most works of this nature, raises more questions than it solves, but he, quite thoroughly, includes direct references to his sources and admirably provides the reader directions for further study. While his comparison could use more focus on the thematic analysis rather than simply event-related parallels, it was well composed and quite interesting with solidly founded conclusions.

Desmond Seward manages to present a research based history book that is readable. Historical figures are often compared, and it's easy to find similarities, but Seward makes a credible presentation. Of particular interest was that Hitler studied Napoleon's campaigns and seemed to give them status as a military education. We are all taught that history will repeat itself if we don't learn from it. In this case, history repeated itself because one man did learn from it.

Well written and organized through extensive research, Seward provides the first scholarly comparison between Hitler and Napoleon. Each section of similarity is extensively described and well researched. A worthy companion to Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin which illustrates the comparison between Hitler and Stalin, though not as in-depth or detailed.