Napoleon (Penguin Lives) [Hardcover]

Paul Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2002 | Series: Penguin Lives

The very name, Napoleon Bonaparte, still enthralls. Ever since this towering and terrible genius conquered Europe, he has been endlessly debated, compared, and made an icon. In Napoleon, the great dictator's energy and acumen are matched by those of his biographer, Paul Johnson, whose histories have been lauded as "fresh, readable, provocative . . . wise" (Los Angeles Times). Here Johnson profiles "the grandest possible refutation of those who hold that events are governed by forces, classes, economics, and geography rather than the powerful wills of men and women."

With masterly eloquence, Napoleon charts Bonaparte's career from the barren island of Corsica and his early training in Paris-he was a bold soldier with an uncanny gift for math, maps, and strategy-through high-profile victories in Italy, military dictatorship, and campaigns across Europe to his end on the forsaken isle of St. Helena. In Napoleon's insatiable hunger for power, Johnson sees a realist unfettered by patriotism or ideology, a brilliant opportunist and propagandist who fulfilled his ambition in the aftermath of the French Revolution. He interprets Napoleon's life in the trajectory of his times, revealing how his complex and violent legacy seeded totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century and sounds an alert to us in the twenty-first.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The career of a different kind of celebrity hound is examined in historian Paul Johnson's Napoleon. Johnson (A History of the American People) contends that Bonaparte sowed the seeds of the devastating warfare and totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Stressing that the Corsican general was motivated by opportunism alone, Johnson traces his rise to power and expansionist bids, arguing that the most important legacies of his rule were the eclipse of France as the leading European power and the introduction of such enduring institutions as the secret police and government propaganda operations. ( on sale May 13)
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this newest addition to the "Penguin Life" series, Johnson (The Birth of the Modern) produces an "unromantic," "skeptical," and "searching" study of a person who exercised power "only for a decade and a half" but whose "impact on the future lasted until nearly the end of the twentieth century." Characterizing Bonaparte primarily as an opportunist "trained by his own ambitions and experiences to take the fullest advantage of the power the Revolution had created," Johnson suggests that, by 1813, the emperor "did not understand that all had changed ... and events were about to deposit him ... on history's smoldering rubbish dump." Why another biography of Napoleon now? Johnson's answer is that the great evils of "Bonapartism" "the deification of force and war, the all-powerful centralized state, the use of cultural propaganda..., the marshaling of entire peoples in the pursuit of personal and ideological power came to hateful maturity only in the twentieth century." Thus, Napoleon's is a grandly cautionary life. Readers might wish to counterbalance Johnson's deliberately sparse outline of Bonaparte's amazing career by examining James M. Thompson's Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall. But Johnson's antiromantic treatment brings into sharp focus the ills he identifies with "Bonapartism," and that focus certainly justifies this new look at the much-studied old general. Recommended for larger public libraries. Robert C. Jones, Warrensburg, MO
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (May 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670030783
• ISBN-13: 978-0670030781
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > History > Military > Napoleonic Wars

More About the Author

Beginning with Modern Times (1985), Paul Johnson's books are acknowledged masterpieces of historical analysis. He is a regular columnist for Forbes and The Spectator, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accomplishes much in under 200 pages, December 10, 2004

By 

C. Ebeling "ctlpareader" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Napoleon (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

My reasons for choosing this book: my world history background is weak, I wanted to fill in a crucial gap; I did not want to spend several months on a steamer trunk of a biography; I am a fan of the Penguin Lives series; I have read Paul Johnson before and know him to be a fine stylist in content areas that many writers lay waste with stultifying prose. I was not disappointed for the most part.

Understandably, it is impossible to catch every fact, every nuance of Napoleon Bonaparte's life and ongoing contribution to history in just under 200 pages (one Victorian era writer dedicated 10 volumes to the man). Johnson limns the environment of the Enlightenment and revolution that was sweeping the western world and connects the life in terms of its how, why and consequences. He strikes a remarkable balance between the birds-eye view of Bonaparte sweeping through Europe and close-up personal sketches, the former conveying the formidably shrewd man of action, the latter revealing an often comic figure. It is to Johnson's credit that he reconciles the two in one body.

Johnson is in no way forgiving of Bonaparte but he does invite wonder at how he rose up out of inauspicious beginnings, could seize a continent, only to make such glaring errors in strategy at Waterloo and ultimately die in exile on a distant island. The autopsy report is a final ironic twist.

Johnson is not without his biases, but I got very good information from him via bright, fluent prose.

36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Napoleon for Dummies, March 27, 2005

By 

Kathleen (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Napoleon (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

Why the vituperative reviews for what is intended as a concise but accurate psychological treatment of a historical figure?

Napoleon has been much romantacized. As Johnson states, more books have been written about Napoleon than any other historical figure except Jesus Christ.

I had always thought of Napoleon as the brief restorer of France's glory after the devastation of the French Revolution. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo ended what would have been France's return to glory. This books shows that Napoleon's brief reign in France consisted of very thin soup. Contrary to some of the negative reviews, Johnson doesn't think everything Napoleon did was bad. He quit persecuting the Catholic Church, restored some order to governing, and did not hold grudges. He treated the army rather well.

On the other hand, he bankrupted the country with endless military campaigns. As soon as the money ran out, he would decide to attack another country. There was no stabilty to the government because it depended financially upon the next military victory which inevitably quit coming. Napoleon also established a secret police. Bribery was rampant.

Johnson rightly debunks the past attempts to romantacize Napoleon's relationships with women especially his first wife, Josephine. There have been entire novels purportingly based upon Napoleon and Josephine's love life. Very little is known about their actual life together except the bare facts.

I found this book easy to read and informative.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good essay on Napoleon, January 29, 2004

By 

Kevin Brianton (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Napoleon (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

This is not strictly speaking a biography. It is more an essay on the imact of Napolean. It is an attempt to place Napoleon in context of world events. Johnson's conclusions that he was the developer of the authoritarian state are absolutely correct. Napoleon was a fantastic military leader, and great self promoter and opportunitst who led France and Europe into disaster.

Johnson puts forward a compelling case that Napoleon's memory should be scorned. It is hard to see how the French regard him as a national hero after his actions.