Customer Reviews

Napoleon: A Political Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I came to this book thinking that it would focus entirely on the political dimension of Napoleon's life. This is not the case. Napoleon: A Political Life might exclude the word 'political' from its title and be just as fitting, for Englund spends a great deal of time on Napoleon's relations with Josephine, his brothers, the exiles, etc.. In fact, in the introduction (at the end of the book), Englund states that he almost subtitled the book "Empire of Circumstance."

The great strength of the book is its writing style. Englund really captures the drama of the Little Corsican's life, and he sweeps the reader up in it. All of the politics of Napoleon's life is, as you would expect, well covered, but so is his personal and military life. Never did I feel overburdened with detail, and never was the text wanting for humour.

There is, however, some merit in the argument posted by some of the other reviewers that the book assumes too much in the way of background knowledge. This is not an introduction to Napoleon for the novice. While I would not go so far as to say that you need have already read another book on Napoleon to enjoy Englund's work, you should certainly have a reasonable idea of the political zeitgeist he worked in, particularly the French revolution and the foreign (especially British) reaction to it. Ideally, you should also have taken a course in French at some point in your life (and not completely forgotten it). Englund has a somewhat irritating habit of dropping les mots francais at random, and often without translation (although most of the more important French phrases are translated, most of the minor ones are not). C'est la vie.

One of my favourite parts of the book was the analysis of Napoleon's legacy: his admirers and detractors, whence he is glorified, and whence he is ignored. Englund is the most balanced Napoleonic author I have yet encountered, seeming to genuinely sympathize with (and synthesize from) those who love and those who hate the l'Empereur.

Perhaps the highest compliment for a book, I plan to reread this one.

Steven Englund's Napoleon: A Political Life (available in paperback from Harvard) is a book that should satisfy both the interested lay reader and the professional historian.

It will satisfy the lay person because it tells a fascinating story about one of history's most interesting and influential human beings, and it tells it exceptionally well. In the process, the reader will gain insights into how a topflight scholar advances his or her field of knowledge.

It will please academics because Englund presents a nuanced revision of the current myths about Napoleon, who, after two hundred years, still stirs passions among his admirers and detractors as though he were living today. The author focuses on Napoleon's evolving political thought and strategy and how his contemporaries actually responded to him, not how we wished they had responded to him. A virtue is that Englund avoids smoothing out Napoleon's past choices and actions through hindsight: Englund emphasizes that actual history is messy; it doesn't come in tidy packages.

The greatest of men, the very few like Napoleon, leave behind an altered world. Englund draws on Christian Meier's masterful biography of Caesar. He frequently compares Napoleon to Caesar, but Napoleon left behind many more permanent structures in France and across Europe thna Caesar did Rome: law code, a system to govern the localities from the center, the Legion of Honor, and in Paris, monuments and buildings and sewer system and roads.

People who won't like the book will most likely object to two things.

(1) It's not a history primer. Englund assumes the reader is conversant with eighteenth-century history history though not at the level of the professional historian.

(2) Englund devotes almost as much time to wars and battles as he does to other issues, both domestic and international. But, especially when discussing Napoleon and his times, Clausewitz was right: war is an extension ofpolitics.

Another objection may be that Englund doesn't condemn Napoleon roundly enough. He admires him but sees what disaster his overweening ambition led him to in the
end.

Highly recommended.

Breaking from the common theme of Napoleonic biographies, Englund ditches miltary strategy, tactics and love affairs, preferring to focus on the political man behind the throne. For Englund, Napoleon is not the idealistic conqueror, but neither is he the tyrannical imperialist. He is, instead, a work in progress, influenced and shaped not only by philosophers like Rousseau and political figures like Paoli and Robespierre, but also by the turbulent events through which he lived. Englund does a great job of illustrating Napoleon's transition from a young, impressionable patriot and idealist, into a pragmatic and efficient ruler, a product of his many influences and encounters.

While exposing many of Napoleon's faults as a ruler, Englund makes no qualms about also recognizing the successes he achieved, first as consul, and later as Emperor. The end result seems to cover both viewpoints effectively. All the better is that Napoleon becomes "human," and like all of us, he has his triumphs and his faults. While one can easily want to yell at the dead Emperor for his persistent antagonizing of the European continent, one can also see him as a man who feels as though he carried the weight of France on his shoulders, and his alone. Englund does a fantastic job attempting to balance the pro/con approaches to Napoleonic study. Great read. Definitely worth checking out for anyone wanting a fresh look at l'Empereur.

Many of us in the U.S., Canada & Mexico, trace our genealogy, culture and religion to Europe. Yet, many Gen-Xers and younger cannot name more than 2 or 3 European capitols. We frustrate the Europeans as much as they frustrate us. To know European history is to understand current trans-Atlantic relations. How can we bridge this gap to our cousins across the pond? Steve Englund's "Napoleon" is a great place to start. No period has had a greater impact on European thought than the 1770's through 1815. Englund brings the reader into the eye of the hurricane.

The author assumes that the reader has completed "Intro to European History 101" at the college level. Englund quickly moves the reader from the banal "Who and What" of history to the intriguing "Why?". Englund's facts and research are impeccable, yet he writes in the humanistic style of a novelist. The book portrays Napoleon not as the brooding figure on horseback, but as the driven immigrant-reformer, speaking accented French, who rises to become Emperor. Napoleon is seen as a tyrannical son of Mars, yet also enlightened governmental innovator. Start your own enlightment with Englund's book.

According Englund, Napoleon is not the tryant depicted in Alan Schom's biography, rather his is a pragamatic ruler that allowed a certain amount of judicial independence in France. Englund writes that only a small number of French citizens were actually imprisoned during the Napoleonic era and that judicial institutions would sometiemes overturn the government's decisions. Englund believes that Napoleon had a postive role in the countries that he occupied since the basis of strong centralized states were developed in Italy and Germany. However Englund is highy critical of Napoleon's handling of foreign policy since he angered the monarchies of Europe by creating the Republic of Genoa in 1803, and then outraged the Russians by expanding the French satellite of Poland in 1809. Both of these actions, Englund states trapped Napoleon into an unwinnable war. I would strongly reccomend this book to anyone who is interested for a new view of the Napoleonic era.

Well, no, not exactly. But this is certainly the most positive recent biography of the Emperor, many of which compare him to Hitler. Steven Englund's new work is a not altogether satisfactory hybrid. On the one hand it is well aware of recent scholarship and frequently refers to it in the notes. On the other hand it is less detailed and less informative than one might expect. Ian Kershaw devoted 1,400 pages of text to Hitler, not counting notes. By contrast Englund devotes about 475 pages and here less is less. Compared to recent biographies such as Paul Preston's Franco, Richard Bosworth's Mussolini or Herbert Bix's Hirohito, this is a less successful book. Another problem lies in its basic thesis. It is complex: Napoleon was a vain man who lusted for military glory and who ultimately failed because he refused to compromise at key points in his reign. But at the same time he was also the advocate of a vaguely progressive reform (which in my view seems to get vaguer as time goes on). The problem with this thesis is not that it is untrue. Indeed it is basically true. But it is poorly presented and argued, with certain lacunae on the way and a certain apologetic tone.

As one reads the book we are reminded of Napoleon's virtues. He was a brilliant general, obviously, such as the quartet of victories he won in five days a few months before his first abdication. He was capable of genuine love (unlike Mussolini and Hitler). He was willing to listen to the advice of people who disagreed with him, he was capable of being calm and reasonable towards people who had crossed him. (Indeed one future conspirator was automatically promoted to general while imprisoned for another plot.) He also possessed genuine courage, getting up after his horse was killed under him, daring opposing French soldiers to either join him or kill him just before the Hundred Days. His reign allowed a certain rule of law and a certain toleration. During his reign he made useful contributions to French society with a more efficient bureaucracy, a new law code, some improvements to education, financial stability, and French stability. Having said all that, there is a certain indulgence in Englund's account. Some of this can be allowed. It is true that Napoleon arranged the judicial murder of the Duc D'Enhigen, but the Allies had been involved in disingenuous plots that involved assassinating French officials. It is true that Napoleon, in his diplomatic proceedings, showed bad faith and aggressiveness. But often his enemies did as well. Yes, Napoleon instituted censorship and had perhaps 2,500 people imprisoned. But many of these were actually rebels or brigands, and there was nothing like the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of summary executions after the restoration in 1815.

But there are also problems. There are slips in Englund's account: the Gracchi brothers were second century BCE, not third; the inflation France faced in the 1790s was not the first in history; the June 1799 "coup" was not directed against Neo-Jacobins, but a neo-Jacobin impeachment of the executive; Napoleon's second wife was not the niece, but the grand-niece of Marie Antoinette. Englund is vague and diffuse about how Napoleon was able to appeal to his soldiers, or when he decided that he wished to become emperor once and for all. One of the most striking things about Napoleon's rule was how popular politics seemed to vanish and poltical dissension apparently evaporated. Englund has little to say about this, aside from the fact that Napoleon was genuinely popular. On questions such as the Neo-Jacobins whom Napoleon overthrew in 1799, or the nature of national consciousness in France and the rest of Europe, or about religious feeling under the Empire, Englund has little to say. Likewise Englund argues that while French occupation could be rough, it did have some progressive aspects. Perhaps, but Englund does not provide the detailed (and somewhat less optimistic) discussion that David Blackbourn and James Sheehan gave in their histories of Germany, nor does Englund really confront the harsher case by Timothy Blanning or Simon Schama. The overall significance of the Empire for the French economy is not made clear, and while Englund notes that there was prosperity he does not dispel the feeling that it was ultimately peripheral. Particularly striking for me is that Napoleon's attempt to reestablish slavery in Haiti is only given a page, while the tens of thousands of Haitians who died as a result of this attempt are not mentioned at all.

As the book goes on Napoleon becomes more ruthless, less willing to hear other people's advice, more contemptuous of the revolution's legacy and less deserving of our sympathy. There are surprisingly few monuments to him in Republican France. One is reminded how for centuries European monarchs have schemed and plotted for glory and how, for nearly two decades the second son of a minor Corsican noble systematically beat and humiliated them. One is reminded of the oceans of sycophancy that have surrounded dynastic rulers and then remembers that Napoleon is the one monarch who actually did something to deserve his. One might say that is all the monument Napoleon needs. More important, it is all he truly deserves.

This witty, lively and beyond all doubt very well written account of Napoleon Bonaparte has the makings of an exceptional cable documentary or docudrama, since it brings the life, times, ambitions, accomplishments, victories and defeats of this larger-than-life military figure into crystal clear focus. Here's a book I can easily recommend for everyone, ranging from military history buffs to readers in general out for something nice to curl up with.

A a student of history, although not on a professional level (I have however read several hundred books on various periods) this is one of the best and most fascinating historical works I have come across. Why do I call it "old fashioned", then? Let me say that I am not using the term in a pejorative sense. For those who have read such authors as Johann Huizenga, Pieter Geyl, Carl Becker, and Carl Durant, all of whom brought a humanistic style to their writing and went beyond the facts (as if we all knew them and/or agreed on such) in pursuit of a more holistic and therefore interpretive synthesis, you will understand what I mean. But remember, this comes from not being a mere researcher, or a pedant seeking to bolster academic claims of tenure, but rather to find the "truth". And what is that? In sum, Napoleon was perhaps the greatest man who ever lived: not the wisest, not the most beneficial (perhaps) to society, but the greatest, in the Nietzschean sense. If you'd like to know why, and like to know why such books as Schom's is absurd and historically biased, you must read this book. P.S. For those who have not visited Les Invalides (Napoleon's tomb) much of what Englund says will become evident. Ironically, and here I do have a small quibble, Napoleon is being compared to Augustus Caeser, not Julius, and rightly so. If Augustus had both his Cassius Dio and his Tacitus, Napoleon has his Englund. Englund perhaps should have made a bit more of that comparison (his comparison does favor Napoleon). A MUST READ!!!

If you can't name 5 important dates and 5 important people in the French Revolution you might want to skip this book. The author is an academic expert on this period and to some extent assumes that the reader is as well. Most of the text is devoted to accounts of political battles with opponents who are not very thoroughly described. This makes the book somewhat dull and hard going for the layperson.

If you are an expert you'll appreciate the wealth of information in this book but will probably still curse the publisher and author for including no maps of Napoleon's battles. It is very hard to understand from the text how any of these were set up or what happened.

Stephen Englund is a person who has immersed himself in a study of Napoleon since childhood. His research in the complex politcial world of nineteenth century Europe is well done.
Napoleon emerges from Englund's book as something of a Renassiance soldier of fortune, The little corporal rose from a lieutenant of artilleryin the Republic army to become the titan of nineteenth century Europe,
Napoleon as delineated by Englund is seen as a complex man of warth and cruelty. Bonaparte loved his family and France. He was
a man who believed in strong authoritan rule whose Code Napoleon and military victories and defeat placed an indelible impact on France.
This book is slow reading. Englund's style is replete with long words and is written in a lapidary, anecdotal style reminiscent of an earlier era of histographic authorship.
I fraknly was bored by much of the intricate politcs involved in the countries conquered, ruled and opposed by Empire France.
The accounts of battles are brief relating to how they affected Napoleonic politcal stratgey. The personal life of Napoleon is briefly chronicled but the interest remains focused on politics,
Those wanting the best account of the military aspects of Napoleon's rule would be better served by reading David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon. The Army of the Empire has been well presented by the work of Elting.
This work should not be used as an introduction to the Napleonic world. It is somewhat specialized and lacks good maps.
Many of the characters are assumed to already be familiar to the reader.
This book is useful for the information it conveys. It is worth the time spent in reading it. Recommended for history buffs but not for those with only a general interest in the man and the European landscape of post-Revolutionary France.