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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.
See all Editorial Reviews
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.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was born on 15 August 1769 at Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Saint Helena, Old Guard, Continental System, First Consul, Grande Armée, Quatre Bras, United States, Hundred Days, Madame de Staël, Revolutionary France, Royal Navy, André Masséna, Cardinal Fesch, Estates General, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Knights of Malta, Napoleonic Empire, William Pitt, Young Guard New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was born on 15 August 1769 at Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Saint Helena, Old Guard, Continental System, First Consul, Grande Armée, Quatre Bras, United States, Hundred Days, Madame de Staël, Revolutionary France, Royal Navy, André Masséna, Cardinal Fesch, Estates General, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Knights of Malta, Napoleonic Empire, William Pitt, Young Guard New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 44
books:
See all 44 books this book cites
- The Knights of Malta by H. J. A. Sire on page 136
- Charles Dickens (Penguin Lives) by Jane Smiley in Front Matter
- Winston Churchill (Penguin Lives) by John Keegan in Front Matter
- Abraham Lincoln (Penguin Lives) by Thomas Keneally in Front Matter
- NAPOLEONIC MILITARY HIST (Garland Reference Library of Social Science) by Horward in Back Matter
See all 44 books this book cites
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